I am not the first to say this and surely I will not be the last, but: isn’t it strange that with all the technological improvements in our lives in the past few decades, the audio fidelity of so many of our phone calls is so abysmal?
I don’t use the phone all that much — in part because in many cases it’s less convenient than e-mail, but also because, I’ve realized lately, poor audio quality is a strong disincentive.
Nearly every call I make or receive has at least one person on a cell phone or cordless phone, and probably 60 percent are between two cell phones. The quality of most cell-phone calls beats the tin-can-and-string setup that kids used to play with, but only marginally. My home phone, a cordless Uniden on a digital phone network provided by Time Warner, offers better baseline quality than my cell phone but a steady diet of distortion, dropouts, and even dropped calls.
The other day, I happened to have a conversation on a real land line with another person on another real land line and I was shocked: I could actually hear. It was the first really good phone conversation I’ve had in about three years.
The convenience of cell phones and even cordless home phones is gigantic. But the audio fidelity is so poor as to make me wonder if:
- Carriers have engaged in a race to the bottom in price (and therefore quality) that leaves a big opportunity for someone to come along and offer decent quality at a premium.
- Better cell quality would cut down on the annoyance factor of overhearing other people’s calls (because they are often shouting, since they can’t hear the person they’re talking to) and maybe even auto safety (since poor audio quality is yet an additional distraction to a driver).
- I am perhaps underappreciative of the pocket-sized marvel we all carry around, and should just shut up about it.
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It may be the same progression as in the music community. People are finally souring to the poor sound quality of MP3s and new products with higher fidelity are emerging.
I question the same logic behind the cellphone batteries. Processors get faster, cellphones can do so many more things, but at the end of the day (and i really mean the END OF THE DAY) the battery still dies.
I agree with you. I hate the phone now and try to do everything by email. I can’t hear anything.
I think a big part of the reason is that for most, audio quality is not that important – as long as you can understand the other person.
Texting & other forms of instant messaging are easier & lend to multitasking more than audio communication.
People would rather put their money into other uses for their “phones” than enhanced audio.
I’ve also wondered why landline quality isn’t better than it is. It’s fine and does its job, but it could be much, much better with today’s digital networks. Compression would be necessary, but if you have an mp3 (that is, a compressed audio file) with a decent bitrate, it sounds much better than a phone call. If you listen to callers to radio stations, you can clearly tell how poor the audio quality is compared to the in-studio guests, even on AM radio. Part of the equation is better equipment – microphones and speakers – but phones could certainly stand to have a modest update in these areas too.
You are on the worst network in the nation with ATT as well. That’s part of your issue.
Your comment “Carriers have engaged in a race to the bottom in price (and therefore quality)” is close, but missing on one part of the phone – the battery. Cell phone users love longer battery life. I remember old cell phones and you had 45 minutes talk time – if that. Now 3 hours is considered bad, and people want 10+ hours – and some phones give.
However, better speakers (especially), and mic inputs (some what) require more power to drive them – which would hurt the talk time requirements that users clamor for. Therefore, we live with what we’ve come to expect.
Thanks for writing this; I thought I was going deaf or something.