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The first minute of every phone call is torture now

theatlantic.com

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Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#271

Post by fivre »

jmbwell wrote: post #186

Article plays up the fumbling for effect, but is otherwise spot on. The PSTN was immensely overbuilt. Old Western Electric equipment is, literally, built of tempered steel, from the crossbar switches in the CO to the red telephone on the desk. The human artifice erected in between, electrically and mechanically connecting a microphone at one end to a speaker at the other, was staggering in its analog complexity, and…

if you want to see how complex and overbuilt it is, https://www.youtube.com/c/ConnectionsMuseum has coverage of all the old PSTN equipment you could ever want

i can't claim to _understand_ it half the time, but there are big rows of mechanical automatons galore

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#272

Post by ridgered4 »

incone123 wrote: post #59
hutzlibu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It would be very helpful for missed calls. “Why did my wife call twice in the last 5 minutes, did something happen, should I panic?!” It also removes the need to leave rambling voicemail." Well, what is stopping your wife from also texting you, if it was something important and she did not reach you? And what would force her, to use a potential subject line? Otherwise it is an interesting idea, but I doubt it will b…

I used to have a phone with DND but if the same caller tried twice in a couple of minutes then it would ring.

I guess this explains why spam calls to my home phone do an immediate retry.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#273

Post by knicholes »

bbarn wrote: post #246
tristor wrote: post #188

I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone calls is 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. It's completely fixable, but American telcos make money off l…

I get the same issues I did in the US here in Iceland, fwiw. I get the added bonus of no longer being able to use many voice activated features because names aren't phonetically pronounced or simply have characters that aren't recognized by CarPlay. "Call Þórunn mobile." "I don't have a Thorin." "Call Porun mobile" "I don't have a porun".

Me: "Call Josh" Car: "Calling James. If this is correct say, 'Yes,' otherwise, say, 'Correction'" Me: "Correction" Car: "Calling Gretchen"

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#274

Post by raisedbyninjas »

wruza wrote: post #267
VBprogrammer wrote: post #172

I expected this to be about the now common pattern of subjecting people to some shit version of Alexa for 10 minutes before you eventually crack and allow them to sit on hold for someone who might actually be able to solve their problem. Bonus shit biscuits if you allow them to get to some answer from Brenda (the brainless Alexa clone) where you basically say "great news, you can do this online". As if anyone with ha…

Don't tell her the truth, make her puzzled. Few days ago I had to help my grandma with hiding some utility cables behind a cover on a new door. I decided that a guy from tv cable company would be the most experienced with this and called their support. Please describe your issue? TV has no signal (it has). Are you at home? Yes (no). Let me check it... hmm, it's okay on our side. Did you try to rescan channels? Yes (o…

Ignore the voice tree. Just shout profanities or "representative". Decent systems will pick up your frustration and divert you to the human queue.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#275

Post by topspin »

LinuxBender wrote: post #197
topspin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll need a few years yet for that. Most old people around today used rotary phones unironically.

Even rotary cell phones [1] I'm old but that is too much for me. I just bought my first smart phone and spent a while in developer mode quieting it down to extend battery life so some old people can do this. [1] - https://skysedge.com/unsmartphones/RUSP/index.html

> so old people can do this

Some can, many won't. Eye sight and dexterity problems have a lot to do with this. When you can't see and your hands shake it's a lot easier to just "hey google call so-and-so."

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#276

Post by hedora »

aliqot wrote: post #260

I read articles like these and have a melancholy reassurance that these aren't Amish problems, but then I get sad because other people have to put up with it and don't see a way not to.

In my very limited experience with the Amish, I have found they are one of very few groups that can be trusted to build a website.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#277

Post by tmjwid »

GaylordTuring wrote: post #241
gary_0 wrote: post #12

Because phones aren't allowed to have bezels anymore for some reason, I'm constantly hanging up on people because there's no room for a proximity sensor to turn off the screen so my cheek presses the "hang up" button. It tries to use the front camera as a makeshift sensor, but it doesn't work very well. Recently I reacted with incredulity when the people on the other end could properly hear me through a newly-connect…

This is one of the reasons why I always let the phone hoover a couple of centimeters from my face when talking to someone. Utterly ridiculous!

This is the way you are meant to hold a phone anyway. In the manuals it states this (e.g apple says 5mm-15mm from your head). This is to reduce SAR.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#278

Post by Wowfunhappy »

armchairhacker wrote: post #240
tristor wrote: post #188

I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone calls is 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. It's completely fixable, but American telcos make money off l…

> It's gotten so bad I just don't answer my phone unless it's a call from someone I know I have my phone set to silence calls unless they are in my contacts list. I tell people this whenever I give out my phone number. Honestly I think this should be the norm. There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you, if they want to reach out they can text or email, and I can't imagine many urgent situations where…

> I have my phone set to silence calls unless they are in my contacts list. [...] Honestly I think this should be the norm. There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you

I teach an after-school coding class. Some weeks ago, the parents of two children didn't arrive at pickup. After 20 minutes, I called the parents using the phone number listed in my company's system. The parents confirmed they were running late due to extenuating circumstances and were now ten minutes away.

I think this was probably better than involving the authorities?

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#279

Post by hedora »

Clent wrote: post #234
ryandrake wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I like to look at it is: Imagine a world where the concept of a phone call never existed. Then, suddenly someone invents an app that: 1. Allows an instant, full-screen foreground takeover over whatever else you are currently doing on the device 2. Rings and vibrates your device 3. Has a button that could allow an unknown person to send and receive audio to and from your device 4. All of this is triggered remo…

It's a pocket computer. The phone feature is a legacy feature that goes away with 2G. Soon carriers will only be moving data. The providers have data to show that the phone functionality is not a primary use case. It is a legacy product whose overhead has a real cost on our economy. When do we stop paying $10-$20 a month per lines of service, for the privileging of being interrupted? When do we stop calling it a smar…

I doubt people from the last century are the ones holding on to the idea of a phone call.

Whatever telcos are doing these days would have led to jail time in the 1990s.

I would like to see a return to the government passing QOS laws for safety critical services, then enforcing them.

Since everyone is dunking on twitter these days: How is it legal for them to slap an auth wall on top of emergency response agencies' feeds? If I MITM'ed the emergency broadcast system with such bullshit, I'd go to jail. Twitter is used during emergencies by at least 100x more people than emergency broadcast.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#280

Post by kube-system »

diob wrote: post #6

I was out of the country last month. Absolutely no spam on my "in country" sim there. Just exactly what I asked for, useful calls and texts. The moment I got back, I was inundated with spam and texts. I don't understand how we've let it get this bad in the USA.

If you get a new number in the US you'll likely have a similar experience
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