There are two types of equipment available to share two devices.

• Two different phone numbers sharing one phone line
• Two different devices sharing one phone number and one phone line

Most telephone companies throughout the US and Canada offer an inexpensive service that allows businesses and homes to have two or three different phone numbers on one phone line. What distinguishes the different telephone numbers coming in on the same line is their signature ring, a pattern of long and/or short rings. Each number has its own special ring.
These "Distinctive Ring" services go by different names sepending on your phone company -custom Ringing by US West, SmartRing by GTE, RingMaster by Bell South, RingMate by NYNEX, Personalized Ringing by Southwestern Bell, Multi-Ring by Ameritech, and IdentaRing by Bell Atlantic.

Once installed on your home or business line, the call processor "listens" in order to determine the pattern of each ring. Then they immediatly route the call to the phone or device you have designated for answering that number - without ringing other phones/devices on the same line!
I would be interested in sharing 2 or 3 phone numbers on the same phone number.

The other type of two-device call processor is the tone detection processor. It does not require any extra service from the phone company and routes the call to the proper device by "listening" for either a CNG tone (the tone that fax machines transmit), DTMF tones (touch tones made by phone or computer), or the absence of a tone (voice calls). You can also manually transfer any call to another device by pressing a few numbers on your phone's touchpad.

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