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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

#291

Post by poxrud »

barbazoo wrote: post #255
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…

Not to jinx it but I haven't gotten any robocalls recently. I'm in Canada and I wonder if the regulations the CRTC introduced around STIR/SHAKEN might have made a difference already?!

I'm also in Canada and get about 5 scam calls per day.

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

#292

Post by svachalek »

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…

Absolutely. Same with turning on a TV these days. People used to flip a switch, now it's a highly technical process that takes a few minutes.

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

#293

Post by InCityDreams »

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…

Top tip (eu based). Don't hang up. Let the robo talk.

Often, a human comes on afterwards. Don't talk to them. If I'm at home (alone) i try and load some porn on the pc and have that play to them. Otherwise, go to the bathroom.

They're paid to talk to you....if you're not talking, some supervisor will notice and eventually you get blacklisted.

Waste their time, not yours.

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

#294

Post by kayodelycaon »

pavlov wrote: post #22

Phone calls should have a subject line, just like emails. It’s crazy that anyone can force a full-screen interrupt on my personal device with no context. If call metadata included a subject line, software could automatically screen out calls where the subject is empty or spammy, just like with email. It would be very helpful for missed calls. “Why did my wife call twice in the last 5 minutes, did something happen, sh…

Not sure what kind of phone you have, but my iPhone doesn’t take over the whole screen (unless locked). I have it set to only show a notification.

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

#295

Post by svachalek »

SaintGhurka wrote: post #222
joshstrange wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the 2 most annoying thing for me when I have to call into a business: 1. "You can find the answers you need online at our website: w w w dot our business name dot com" - First I would never call if I could do what I needed online, second get me to the menu already. I hate waiting 30-60sec+ for a prerecorded message that doesn't tell me anything new. 2. "We are experiencing higher than normal call volume" - Bu…

3. "Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed"

Pretty sure this is like, did you unplug it, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in again? They want to say "listen carefully" but have to dress it up a bit so it doesn't sound rude.

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

#296

Post by jcpst »

Wow, I didn't realize this was a common enough problem that someone had to write about it. I don't have any of those issues. I mean, I've had a few times where a call was dropped, but that's really rare.

One thing that really improved life for me was intentionally never setting up the voicemail on my current number. I am unable to accept voicemail. I've had it this way for 4 years now- I do not miss checking voicemail, and I'm not bothered by people unable to leave it. They can text or email.

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

#297

Post by achow »

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

In my case 90% of time people I know call over WhatsApp or other Voip calls.

Whereas 100% of phone calls from 'critical strangers' are over phone. 'Critical strangers' are delivery persons or cab drivers or courier or office colleagues... those who are calling to find out my whereabouts (critical in that context).

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

#298

Post by brk »

sib wrote: post #264
brk wrote: post #181

While most communications technology has improved over the last quarter century in terms of throughput, latency, cost, etc., voice calls have become horrid. Every aspect of telephone calls has become a total nightmare. Constant spam calls, poor audio quality, phones doing weird and random things in terms of answering calls and routing the audio to the proper device. It is strange how telco's have managed to absolutel…

Google is working on ‘clear calling’ for Android phone calls: https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/9/23344147/android-phone-cal...

The first beta for the Android 13 quarterly release includes a new “clear calling” feature that “reduces background noises during calls.”

That's neat, but background noise is not the issue as much as laggy over-compressed audio. Reducing noise might help make the over compression not so bad, but it won't fix the horrible lags, IMO.

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

#299

Post by VBprogrammer »

vlunkr wrote: post #270
tristor wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's directly due to Covid, as the grandparent asserts, but it's pretty indisputable that the quality of customer service has eroded across pretty much every industry sector, at least in the US. This could be due to companies generally being short-staffed, but it does seem like even when you interact with someone the intelligence level (or maybe more charitably, the experience level) of the people you…

Yeah I can see that. Calling big companies has been terrible forever, but customer service in physical stores has gone downhill. Mostly they all seem short-staffed. Seems like lots of stores let people go, and didn't replace them in favor of self-checkout systems.

Really grinds my gears when you go into a physical store and they say "oh, we don't have that but you can order it on our website!"

Bit of self reflection required about thier likely employment prospects.

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

#300

Post by ggreer »

dfxm12 wrote: post #225
filoleg wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Not trying to defend US or its telecoms here, but I think it has more to do with scammers trying to maximize for profit. Just like with malware heavily targeting Windows instead of macOS/Linux, or some apps prioritizing iOS instead of Android (by either launching as iOS-only and then introduc…

Are you implying US is the only non-low-disposable-income country? lol. This isn't a problem in say, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, etc., as it is in the US. Also, the most spammed country appears to be Brazil, and it is far from the top of the disposable income lists. Many among the most spammed countries don't register on the top disposable income lists. There's something else at play here. Likely legislation/regul…

Your spam info link is to Truecaller, which measures how much their users in each country get spam calls. That's definitely not a random sample of each country's users, so it's hard to say whether their conclusions are correct.

I hadn't considered the money angle before, but it makes a lot of sense. The poorest US state (Mississippi) has higher per capita disposable income than the 6th highest-ranked country (Norway). Every state other than Mississippi has a higher per capita disposable income than Australia. There are a ton of Americans, they're rich, and almost all of them speak the most popular language on the planet. The US has a high fraction of immigrants (12% of the population), so many Americans aren't immediately suspicious of accents. Compared to other countries, the US is a big juicy target.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/303534/us-per-capita-dis...

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