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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

#441

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

guenthert wrote: post #440
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there was (european) ISDN. That was peak voice.

Not really. Transmissions were perhaps reliable, clear and fixed, low latency, but the bandwidth was still quite limited (64kbps). I still remember first time I used the yahoo! voice chat (VoIP using DSL on my end) with a decent sound card and head-set. It sounded like my peer was in the same room (1v1, voice only then -- with multi-party the sound quality degenerated quickly).

Unconvinced. In the same room you wouldn't wear a head-set, would you? :-) Also Mumble at 64kbps can sound really good. Anyways, didn't do/have that the time, so no comparison.

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

#442

Post by Godel_unicode »

rhino369 wrote: post #175
Godel_unicode wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if this is happening to you it’s your fault. You must either live in a coal mine or use terrible tech for your calls. I have voip calls all the time and they’re all what you’re asking for. It just takes a tiny amount of forethought when deciding on what tech to use.

I work in Downtown DC, you can see the Washington monument from my office window--and I still get awful Verizon reception on an iPhone 12 pro.

Not according to the data you don’t. There are a couple places in DC that have actually bad signal but not in that area.

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

#443

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

rootusrootus wrote: post #233
2000UltraDeluxe wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a 5-6 inch pad available? Android tablets? Several.

I'd be interest to know what those are. Smallest I've been able to find is 8 inches.

Hmm, I was going to get back to you with a list, but it seems most of the 6-inchers have been discontinued. The Amazon Fire 6 would have been the most prominent example.

There are some, but none of them would be suitable for consumer use.

I stand corrected!

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

#444

Post by jmbwell »

guenthert wrote: post #440
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there was (european) ISDN. That was peak voice.

Not really. Transmissions were perhaps reliable, clear and fixed, low latency, but the bandwidth was still quite limited (64kbps). I still remember first time I used the yahoo! voice chat (VoIP using DSL on my end) with a decent sound card and head-set. It sounded like my peer was in the same room (1v1, voice only then -- with multi-party the sound quality degenerated quickly).

The reliability, clarity, and fixed low latency were nothing to sniff at, and ISDN didn't lose on quality by any means. In a different universe, it might have gone on to be a dominant technology.

The data rate was 64kbps. The audio frequency bandwidth of G.722, the most widely compatible codec over ISDN, is about 7kHz. Typical analog phone line bandwidth was about 3kHz, so a single ISDN BRI D-channel call was already twice the bandwidth of analog. This was sufficient for ISDN to be suitable for links between sports arenas and FM broadcast stations, for example. Other codecs with better compression (like MPEG) over bonded D-channels for 128kbps, could provide more like 20kHz audio bandwidth (in stereo!), which is close enough to "broadcast quality" 22kHz to be useful for coast-to-coast broadcasts and remote studio recording.

In our timeline, however, Carterfone and the breakup of AT&T opened the doors for all kinds of development in voice-band modem technology. 56K modems were good enough, and they worked with existing last-mile equipment on existing POTS lines, leaving ISDN to find a niche with small business and broadcast. When "always-on" DSL entered the market to compete for Internet subscribers, ISDN was finished. People cared more about data rates than latency, more about the Internet than point-to-point links, and the market ISDN was aiming for had moved on by the time it arrived. Rapid deployment of fiber and T1/E1 quickly ate up whatever was left of ISDN's apple... not because ISDN wasn't very good at what it did, just because people didn't much care about what it was good at.

Which, I suppose, brings us back to the point of the article: advances come with drawbacks.

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

#445

Post by taylodl »

ghostpepper wrote: post #402
namaria wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing not taken into account on this rant (and it is just a big rant) is the incredible increase in scale. Nearly everyone has a phone and can make phone calls now and we're almost 8 billion people. The old, understandable, analog system would have never scaled like this. Quality didn't degrade because of greed or degeneracy. It was a trade-off and I say the level of access we have now trumps whatever nostalgia p…

You may be correct that we made the right choice with the tradeoff, but saying that the old system worked better (for those who could use it) is not nostalgia. Audio quality (and communication ability) on zoom is objectively far worse than it was over analog copper lines.

What? My Zoom call (I actually use MS-Teams) can include dozens of people, with video, who are from all over the world. The old phone system wasn't able to do that - especially at the cost of Zoom. People today would be shocked to know what our monthly phone bill cost was back in the day in today's dollars and the lack of value purchased for that money.

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

#446

Post by bearmode »

somehnguy wrote: post #155
zdragnar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use any browser skin on an iphone. They're all the same web view.

Right, but the underlying engine doesn’t matter much practically speaking. I don’t think I’ve ever run into a situation where the browser on iOS limited me from doing things I would want to do on mobile. I use FireFox on iOS because it syncs with FireFox on my laptop.

The browser engine is exactly why I don't want to use Safari.

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

#447

Post by zdragnar »

pannSun wrote: post #208
zdragnar wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from LG to a pixel. I don't regret the better hardware or more frequent updates, but so many tiny things were substantially better on the LG. Biggest peeve: on the LG phones I had, you could use the volume buttons / menu to silence or turn down individual applications. On the pixel, out of the box you only get a global media volume control. Also have experience with the stock phone dialler putting up promp…

Notice how in this conversation, no precise program name or version was brought up. "The stock dialer on an LG", "the dialer on a Pixel"... On a computer (a real computer), the first words would be something like "On Firefox 106.0.2 64-bit", but phones have such abysmal user control that most of the time we don't even know what programs we're running .

To be honest, I'd have to do some digging around to get exact versions of a fair amount of my software on my latop- much of it isn't immediately surfaced in the UI, and where it was installed from could be from several places.

In android, every app version is found in the exact same place on my phone:

Settings > Apps > (select an app) > very bottom has version number. App details takes you to the full details page in the play store, which shows the full name of the app and the publisher name.

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

#448

Post by namaria »

ghostpepper wrote: post #424
namaria wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you comparing zoom calls to analog phone calls? My transcontinental, zero marginal cost whatsapp phone calls are pretty good.

I haven't used that - how is the latency?

It's not great but it's good enough for, again, a free call half way across the globe.

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

#449

Post by paultopia »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #434
paultopia wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess, but the whole rest of the way technology and galloping capitalism have transformed work makes that harder. For example, lots and lots of us have to take calls on the move (walking somewhere, driving somewhere, etc.) just because our schedules are so crammed. Try doing that without some kind of hands-free device.

Phone mounts for the car have been around for years and allow for hands free talking. And if you can't answer the phone and walk, I'd say that's a bigger problem than something technology can solve.

That's right. I'm a defective human who isn't as good as you evidently are at somehow participating in a phone conversation on a cellphone speaker over freeway noise, or walking around with my head pressed against a tiny little device pressed against my shoulder for hours. And the millions of people who also find these tasks physically uncomfortable or difficult are just not as fine physical specimens as a robust and fit as yourself. Condescending much?

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

#450

Post by loloquwowndueo »

bigbacaloa wrote: post #428
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define “old” :) Also even those of us who don’t ca that much, do receive calls since some entities still prefer to call you (government, medical, education). It’s either that or snail mail - despite the fact that most of them have my email address.

Like many comments in this site, this is very US centric. Where I live (in Europe) no government entity calls anyone. They might send an SMS as confirmation or notification, but formal communications are sent electronically. Nobody under the age of about 45 calls on the phone as a regular matter.

Well I’m not in the US :)
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