Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#1

Post by scandox » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:06 PM UTC

I'm very sensitive to bad call quality. I'm very easy going about most things, but poor sound quality or an intermittent connection on a call, make it completely impossible for me to maintain normal communication and also makes me extremely cross.

As a result I am very attuned to the general quality of different call services. I always know when I'm on a PSTN that terminates to another PSTN - yes maybe the voices are a bit trebly but the connection is so consistent and wonderful. I actually appreciate the quality of those calls.

Skype, Viber, our own corporate VOIP system (whatever the hell it is) all drive me completely nuts. I have 240MB/s at home, but still VOIP lets me down: about 1 in 3 calls is of a quality I am happy with.

I guess my question is: will this ever be solved to my satisfaction, or is it simply the nature of the beast and "good enough" for most people?

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#2

Post by iopuy » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:20 PM UTC

Where do you live where you can get 2 gigabit speeds at home?

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#3

Post by neverminder » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:22 PM UTC

iopuy wrote: post #2

Where do you live where you can get 2 gigabit speeds at home?

It's more likely he meant 240Mbit/s

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#4

Post by scandox » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:24 PM UTC

iopuy wrote: post #2

Where do you live where you can get 2 gigabit speeds at home?

240 Mbps. So AFAIK 240 megabits per second. Is my original notation ambiguous?

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#5

Post by scandox » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:24 PM UTC

neverminder wrote: post #3

iopuy wrote: post #2

Where do you live where you can get 2 gigabit speeds at home?

It's more likely he meant 240Mbit/s

Yes sorry I did

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#6

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:24 PM UTC

neverminder wrote: post #3

iopuy wrote: post #2

Where do you live where you can get 2 gigabit speeds at home?

It's more likely he meant 240Mbit/s

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#7

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:24 PM UTC

neverminder wrote: post #3

iopuy wrote: post #2

Where do you live where you can get 2 gigabit speeds at home?

It's more likely he meant 240Mbit/s

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#8

Post by zamalek » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:27 PM UTC

It's probably because most people have horrible quality microphones.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#9

Post by sheepdestroyer » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:29 PM UTC

iopuy wrote: post #2

Where do you live where you can get 2 gigabit speeds at home?

Possibly OP was incorrectly confusing Mbps and MBps but in Japan Sony offers 2Gb/s for home connections.

I had their 1Gb/s plan for ~6000JPY/Month when I was living in Kyoto. Was great

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't VoIP better?

#10

Post by tomfanning » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 12:29 PM UTC

I find I agree.

- lossy vs lossless codecs (PSTN isn't analogue end-to-end any more, but is lossless as far as I'm aware. VoIP seems to have been about squeezing as much traffic down the pipe as possible, at the expense of quality.)

- circuit vs packet switched networks (Congestion, contention, jitter on shared packet switched networks. While I'm sure PSTN doesn't have "physical" circuit switching any more, I do get the impression that high-bandwidth bearers are chopped into fixed-width chunks, like 64k ISDN, and will reach capacity and stop accepting demand rather than degrade individual connections)

For me, wideband audio helps, even with the jitter and lossy codec. This is starting to become common in the UK on cellular calls between smartphones, even between different network providers. Audio bandwidth is comparable to Facetime Audio.