Abstract: A telephone answering service system in which calls to a telephone which can not be answered are forwarded to a unique number identifying a line in a first telephone company (TELCO) service and immediately forwarded by the first TELCO service to a second TELCO service which uniformly distributes received calls over a group of lines connected to the answering service and provides called number ID and line identification over a separate data line to the answering service. The answering service has a number of operator stations where the status of the group of lines is displayed and processing data relative to the called party is available to answer and forward received calls to another number.