Only two? Around 1995 we had four phone lines: home, home office, fax, and modem. There were only three physical pairs, so two of the lines (I think the voice lines) came off one physical pair with a frequency division splitter.

Some time later I saw a Pacific Bell truck and crew trenching the street. (We had underground utilities.) I excitedly asked them, "Are you running fiber?" "No, just more copper."

I guess they saw the demand for lots of copper lines per house and decided to meet it!

The underground phone lines did lead to some excitement one time. Their water sealing wasn't very good, and after a heavy rain the line would get noisy and clicky. During one of these episodes, we got a loud knock on the door: "San Jose Police! Open up!"

I ran to the door and asked what was going on. One of the officers said, "We got a 911 call from this address. The dispatcher couldn't hear anyone on the line, and no one answered when they called back. So we're required to come out and investigate the situation."

I replied, "That's odd, neither of us called 911. Oh... I think I know what may have happened. Come in and I'll show you."

We went to the kitchen and I put the wall phone (remember those?) on speaker and had the officers listen. It was clicking up a storm!

Then I asked them if they remembered the old rotary phones (they did). I explained how the phone dial worked by breaking and making the circuit N times for each digit you were dialing. And it must have been that in that flurry of clicks that the circuit was broken nine times, then once, then once again.