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Google Fiber Phone

fiber.google.com

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Re: Google Fiber Phone

#81

Post by Zigurd »

knodi123 wrote: post #55
grahamburger wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on Google Voice, I used it all the way back to the Grand Central days and I wish it were maintained more. That being said, the Hangouts integration isn't that bad now. I know it feels risky to hit that 'merge to hangouts' button but I've been using it for a while without any huge inconveniences. The only problem I run in to is when I need to search for old SMS messages, the only way to do it after merging is b…

> is by doing an 'in:chats searchterm' search in Gmail. That wouldn't even be so bad except that I also use Inbox and the search doesn't work in Inbox. is there a way to access gmail once you've switched to inbox? I would love to be able to edit my filters again...

I ran into this recently. There is a gmail "link" in the left column of the Inbox ui. That will get you around the Gmail redirect.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#82

Post by davidf18 »

umeshunni wrote: post #60
matthewmcg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that a lot of this innovation, while radically increasing flexibility and dropping cost, has degraded call quality. On the other hand, calls between certain compatible LTE handsets (AT&T calls this "HD Audio" in my market) sound far better than classic landlines ever did. Ditto for good Skype calls and Facetime Audio.

> AT&T calls this "HD Audio" I believe the generic term is VoLTE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_LTE

VoLTE is great -- I use it on Verizon. But at least with Verizon it is turned off by default and most people don't seem to turn it on. It is turned off by default because LTE coverage is not as complete as the legacy 3G coverage (yet).

Facebook audio as others have pointed out is great.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#83

Post by nikanj »

rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

I can easily experience this today by calling over wifi+Whatsapp instead of making a regular call. You'd think that the network specialized to telephones would have superior quality, but I've never experienced that.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#84

Post by HCIdivision17 »

rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

Worse yet, you could talk at the same time as the other person! Carrying on a conversation with my mom is like talking at that fancy riot mike from a few years ago [0]. If you don't have a perfectly negotiated rhythm, you're gonna talk over the other person, cutting them off, missing part of their sentence, and then begin a flood of repeat/acks before starting again. It's bloody idiotic, and my mom is convinced she's just terrible at talking to people, when instead for the first time in her life the phone is too dumb to do the job right; she thinks she's terrible with tech, and it's really just dumb machines failing her expectations.

And never mind the loss of fidelity so you can't tell someone's tone or not.

Almost makes me wanna just chuck this miracle slab of supercomputing glass. plonk

[0] Seems like it's called the Delayed Auditory Feedback effect. Some researchers built a directional mike/megaphone combo that basically stupefies anyone it's pointed at into silence.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#85

Post by redditplebs »

ubersync wrote: post #80
danpat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideband_audio and more specific to cellular phones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_Wideband Search for "HD Voice" from the big cellular companies in the US. It usually requires handset support.

It is correct that both parties need this for better quality?

It is, yes (and both possibly need to be on the same network - at least, I know this is the case for Verizon's HD calling).

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#86

Post by kristofferR »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #79
umeshunni wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AT&T calls this "HD Audio" I believe the generic term is VoLTE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_LTE

Not really. VoLTE is Voice over LTE[1], which most likely implements HD voice (wideband audio[2],) however, with carrier and device support HD voice could be done over 3G and 2G networks as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_LTE [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideband_audio

VoLTE will actually soon feature Enhanced Voice Services (EVS), or Full-HD Voice, which is a vast improvement over "regular" HD Voice.

EVS is supposedly transparent and full-band. http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/standards/full-hd-voice-wil...

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#87

Post by derefr »

skywhopper wrote: post #63
rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

You could also have a conversation in real time, and not delayed by a second. Cell phone delay has made it impossible for me to carry on a meaningful conversation with anyone. There's also value in having a phone number for a house or a family, separate from phone numbers of individual people. I don't want my utility company or my cable company having my cell number. But I'm not the only person that can make decision…

I imagine you don't make many international calls.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#88

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

The sad thing is it isn't circuit switched networks or analog transmission that makes for call quality. There is no technical reason a cell phone can't have good audio quality. They just don't, because garbage-quality audio hardware and extreme lossy compression save a marginal amount of money.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#89

Post by X86BSD »

danpat wrote: post #74
knodi123 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to remember how crystal clear phone calls used to be. I wonder if there's a niche for the first service willing to use more bytes and sacrifice efficiency in the name of analog-era call quality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideband_audio and more specific to cellular phones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_Wideband Search for "HD Voice" from the big cellular companies in the US. It usually requires handset support.

I believe apple has supported this with the iPhone for several years now.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#90

Post by criddell »

rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

I wonder why they can't fix the caller id problem? Why is it so easy for telemarketers to use fake information? I've basically moved to a telephone whitelist -- if you aren't in my contacts list, you are going straight to voicemail.
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