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An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

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Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#101

Post by alephnullshabba »

kbutler wrote: post #48
bigthymer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably would have turned into a customer service line for all of their products they notoriously fail to adequately support.

This is a good theory and may have been an actual motivation to shut it down.

This isn't what goog-411 was. You would dial Google's 1800 number, and then tell a voice prompt the name of the business and location, and google would try and automate looking the business up and then route the call for you by ringing them automatically. In the pre-smart phone era, this would allow you to call a business with just your dumb phone. GOOG-411 is completely worthless in the smart phone era (discontinued in 2010).

It's worth mentioning that goog-411 enabled at least a couple very niche internet subcultures in the early 2000's. When skype brought in free 1800 calling, GOOG-411 could be used as a way to dial any business with skype for free (so no credit card info associated with an account). Think Xbox live lobbies but its a dozen kids on a call, muted, and taking turns unmuting to prank call (harass) businesses all day. I watched a childhood friend spend a summer doing this with a group he met playing mmo's/forums, two of which ended up making it as famous streamers over a decade later. I imagine this experience is very common for a type of kid that grew up online in a certain era (mw2), and google could probably see the tool was garnering a disproportionate amount of abuse

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#102

Post by pixl97 »

MadnessASAP wrote: post #92
bigthymer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably would have turned into a customer service line for all of their products they notoriously fail to adequately support.

Would that have been so terrible?

If you're a company trying to make as much money while spending at little money as possible, yes.

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#103

Post by alephnullshabba »

kbutler wrote: post #48
bigthymer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably would have turned into a customer service line for all of their products they notoriously fail to adequately support.

This is a good theory and may have been an actual motivation to shut it down.

This isn't what goog-411 was. You would dial Google's 1800 number, and then tell a voice prompt the name of the business and location, and google would try and automate looking the business up and then route the call for you by ringing them automatically. In the pre-smart phone era, this would allow you to call a business with just your dumb phone. GOOG-411 is completely worthless in the smart phone era (discontinued in 2010).

It's worth mentioning that goog-411 enabled at least a couple very niche internet subcultures in the early 2000's. When skype brought in free 1800 calling, GOOG-411 could be used as a way to dial any business with skype for free (so no credit card info associated with an account). Think Xbox live lobbies but its a dozen kids on a call, muted, and taking turns unmuting to prank call (harass) businesses all day. I watched a childhood friend spend a summer doing this with a group he met playing mmo's/forums, two of which ended up making it as famous streamers over a decade later. I imagine this experience is very common for a type of kid that grew up online in a certain era (mw2), and google could probably see the tool was garnering a disproportionate amount of abuse

("Do you guys have battletoads?")

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#104

Post by lxgr »

timcobb wrote: post #93
GuB-42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Do you mean it is not analog and latency is higher as a result? Then yes, it matters. I hate latency in voice calls, I already went into arguments because of that. I remember in a remote work meeting, we had a frantic discussion, with some disagreements and strong opinions, but it was productive and purely technical, nothing personal. But then someone angrily told me "stop interrupting me!", the thing is, I…

> So what? It's not a microphone in a reciever oscillating a copper line. In my opinion, if it's voip it's not a "landline".

There almost certainly still is one – from the handset or headset to the VoIP desk phone :)

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#105

Post by lxgr »

tcoff91 wrote: post #54
toast0 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you mean it is not analog and latency is higher as a result? Digital teleophony doesn't imply significant latency. PRI calling (T1/ISDN) is digital, but the sampling delay is minimal, and it's sent one sample at a time, so there's no packetization delay. VoIP tends to run a codec with sampling/encoding delays, and tends to be at least 20ms packetization, and then you have a jitter buffer and probably input and o…

The main problem is packet switching instead of circuit switching. Internet sucks for voice

Almost all my calls these days are via OTT VoIP (FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom etc.), and I really can't say I notice much of a qualitative difference to old PCM lines – if anything, the opposite is the case; wideband voice makes longer phone calls much more bearable.

And that's over unprioritized 5G/LTE and Wi-Fi. Properly prioritized VoIP, such as the one used in VoLTE and NGN networks, should have even better jitter and latency characteristics.

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#106

Post by GuB-42 »

timcobb wrote: post #93
GuB-42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Do you mean it is not analog and latency is higher as a result? Then yes, it matters. I hate latency in voice calls, I already went into arguments because of that. I remember in a remote work meeting, we had a frantic discussion, with some disagreements and strong opinions, but it was productive and purely technical, nothing personal. But then someone angrily told me "stop interrupting me!", the thing is, I…

> So what? It's not a microphone in a reciever oscillating a copper line. In my opinion, if it's voip it's not a "landline".

For me, if it is a line and it goes through the land (i.e. by wire/fiber), then it is a landline. As opposed to signals going through the air, i.e. by radio.

Except in very special cases, like emergency phones in ships, it is never a direct connection, there are at least amplifiers in the middle. So between a direct connection from the microphone to the speaker at the other end and VoIP, where do you draw the line? (pun not intended)

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#107

Post by mrguyorama »

charcircuit wrote: post #86
slyfox125 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cannot because it is not human. It can emulate the experience but it will never be genuine. Generally, if a caller ever became aware that it wasn't truly a person on the other end it would lessen the interaction. Whether that is justified or not is debatable, but it is nonetheless the case and thus the end result is not the same.

It may not be the same, but it could be a better overall experience compared to using humans.

For what definition of "better"?

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#108

Post by toast0 »

lxgr wrote: post #105
tcoff91 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is packet switching instead of circuit switching. Internet sucks for voice

Almost all my calls these days are via OTT VoIP (FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom etc.), and I really can't say I notice much of a qualitative difference to old PCM lines – if anything, the opposite is the case; wideband voice makes longer phone calls much more bearable. And that's over unprioritized 5G/LTE and Wi-Fi. Properly prioritized VoIP, such as the one used in VoLTE and NGN networks, should have even better jitter an…

I mean.... when was the last time you made a call that was full analog/PRI? Did you notice that cell phones had higher latency than landlines?

30-40 ms latency is probably the lower bound on a VoIP call [1]; most calls will be a lot more. But you might not notice it if that's all you have access to, or if all of your calls are long distance that it would never be good anyway. On long distance, you probably have a better transmission delay now over internet than you would have had over telephone networks, as cable routes have improved and routing is often more direct; that will probably offset some of the packetization delay.

[1] You can do better, but it involves having great connectivity and sending lots of very small packets, and mainstream calling isn't willing to send 200 packets per second of 5 ms of samples when most people don't notice/complain about the latency when sending 50 packets per second with 20 ms of samples.

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#109

Post by lxgr »

toast0 wrote: post #108
lxgr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all my calls these days are via OTT VoIP (FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom etc.), and I really can't say I notice much of a qualitative difference to old PCM lines – if anything, the opposite is the case; wideband voice makes longer phone calls much more bearable. And that's over unprioritized 5G/LTE and Wi-Fi. Properly prioritized VoIP, such as the one used in VoLTE and NGN networks, should have even better jitter an…

I mean.... when was the last time you made a call that was full analog/PRI? Did you notice that cell phones had higher latency than landlines? 30-40 ms latency is probably the lower bound on a VoIP call [1]; most calls will be a lot more. But you might not notice it if that's all you have access to, or if all of your calls are long distance that it would never be good anyway. On long distance, you probably have a bet…

> when was the last time you made a call that was full analog/PRI?

Probably 15-20 years ago? That would have most likely been over DECT, though, which adds 10 or so ms by itself (our wired landline phone was in a slightly awkward location :)

> Did you notice that cell phones had higher latency than landlines?

Compared to landlines, the most noticeable aspect of GSM wasn't the latency (unless the person on the other line was right next to me, in which case there was an echo), but rather the absolute potato quality compared to both G.711 landlines and modern VoIP codecs.

> mainstream calling isn't willing to send 200 packets per second of 5 ms of samples

Yeah, that would probably be too much overhead for most applications. But now you got me wondering: Do video calls have lower latency audio (assuming the codec can do better than 20ms in the first place), given that there's probably much more data available to send at any given time?

Re: An Alabama landline that keeps ringing

#110

Post by toast0 »

lxgr wrote: post #109
toast0 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean.... when was the last time you made a call that was full analog/PRI? Did you notice that cell phones had higher latency than landlines? 30-40 ms latency is probably the lower bound on a VoIP call [1]; most calls will be a lot more. But you might not notice it if that's all you have access to, or if all of your calls are long distance that it would never be good anyway. On long distance, you probably have a bet…

> when was the last time you made a call that was full analog/PRI? Probably 15-20 years ago? That would have most likely been over DECT, though, which adds 10 or so ms by itself (our wired landline phone was in a slightly awkward location :) > Did you notice that cell phones had higher latency than landlines? Compared to landlines, the most noticeable aspect of GSM wasn't the latency (unless the person on the other l…

> Do video calls have lower latency audio (assuming the codec can do better than 20ms in the first place), given that there's probably much more data available to send at any given time?

At least for WebRTC, no. The audio and video streams are separate, there's no mechanism in WebRTC to piggyback audio onto video packets. If the receiver is synchronizing audio with video, there's potential for additional delay (but when A/V sync works, it's probably worth it)

I don't know details about WhatsApp calling (although I worked there, I didn't touch the realtime calling stack), I think it does use RTP which isn't really built around piggybacking, but since it's a closed service, they can do whatever. No idea about Apple's calling either.

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