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It’s the pattern. You don’t pick up on the first ring. It was like caller ID. so you pulse the line to make the other phones ring. They all ring at once. But if I want to call “Bob’s house” the signal is “riiiiing, ring, ring” and for Steve’s house it is “ring, riiiiiiing, riiiing.” And so forth. Do you let the phone ring until you know it isn’t, or is for you. Of course- you could always just pick it up anyway regardless if you were free.

Without the barbed wire part- all phones were once like this. You could install a switchboard- and some rural communities did. You’d call the “operator” instead of the person you wanted to talk to and tel them who you wanted. They’d then connect the physical line between you so you could talk one on one. Well- the operator can always listen or anyone tapped to the line between the two phones or out of the dispatch.

At one point- more rural communities had phones in the home than urban ones! There was already plenary of barbed wire to support the network. Eavesdropping wasn’t the only problem though- barbed wire isn’t insulated. Every length had to be insulated from the posts so it didn’t ground out and kill the network, and you had to make sure your wires didn’t touch another of the strands that made up the fence. Rain could make it so the phones didn’t work, and places with lots of snow could also face spotty or no phone connections until the thaw.

That’s ignoring of course that sometimes animals or nature would knock the fences down or damage them, which would require finding and repairing the problem to have service again. There are still some systems like this today- and they weren’t common but still plenty around even into the late 20th century.

People with ranches and large properties could set up something similar or even identical to allow contact with the house or various remote areas without needing to travel all the way back to get a quick message off- and walky talkies and cellular weren’t so common, cheap, convenient or reliable until the last few decades. So “barb wire” type phones were more often used in recent times for communications on the same property or job site than for while communities in the US.

Can't speak about all of them but the town my dad grew up in no one locked their doors. When asked why it was because what if someone needed to use the phone. It was apparently a common practice to just walk into any home if you broke down or there was an emergency and you needed to call someone.