ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling

Hi there, kiddo! Do you know what a telephone is? It's a device that we use to make calls to our friends and family.

When you press the buttons on a telephone, you hear different sounds that tell the phone company where you want to call. These sounds are called "tones".

Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling is a way of sending two different tones at the same time to tell the phone company where you want to call. It's like playing two different musical notes on a piano at the same time to make a new sound.

You see, every number on a telephone keypad has its own unique combination of two tones that make it different from the other numbers. For example, when you press the number "1", your telephone sends a tone with a high frequency (like a high-pitched sound) and a tone with a low frequency (like a low-pitched sound).

When the phone company receives these tones, it knows that you want to call someone who has a telephone number that starts with the digit "1".

So, dual-tone multi-frequency signaling is just a fancy way of saying that the telephone uses two different tones to send signals to the phone company. And that's how we can connect to other people and call them on our phones!