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We have regressed on so many audio-related fronts. Our phone conversations may have far better sound today than they used to, but anyone who remembers true anal
by interfixus 9y ago
We have regressed on so many audio-related fronts. Our phone conversations may have far better sound today than they used to, but anyone who remembers true analog telephony knows what we have left behind in terms of synchronicity and natural flow of dialogue.
- vhold 9y agoOn the flip side was getting busy signals because of there not being enough capacity somewhere between you and the person you were calling, and also cross-talk issues, where you could hear other peoples' phone conversations on your line.
- interfixus 9y agoAbsolutely. But the natural, two-ways, un-echoed flow of conversation, just as if you were talking to someone in the room - we have lost that, and it's a major loss.
- vhold 9y agoAgreed, heck, I still lament low latency dial-up shell access. Even at 9600 baud it was still more responsive and felt like using a computer in the same room. Chatting with somebody like that, in talk/ytalk/etc, where you could see their every keystroke was a totally different experience because you could even get a vague sense of their thinking process through their pauses and edits.
- dsr_ 9y agoI was using a 9600 baud connection about an hour ago. It sucks rocks. You can see the ascii-menu updating. Everything flickers. (Serial console access to a server, if you really care.) If you run ytalk on a modern machine, it doesn't flicker, but you can still get every keystroke, because that's the protocol.
- BenjiWiebe 9y agoI have a server with ntalk for a few friends and it is my favorite method of non face-to-face communication.
- jackhack 9y agoFor me it's the slurring compression artifacts as much as the lag that makes cell phone conversations, web meetings, etc. inferior. Local digital cell phone calls mimic the old cross-country long distance analog calls of yesterday in terms of delay. w.r.t broadcast video, the eye/mind can still pick out an image from a static-filled snowy image, but digital artifacts from low/poor signal result in freeze-frames and garbled mess. Summary: Digital. When it's good, it's very good. But when it's bad, it's awful.
- lostlogin 9y agoThis is it exactly. Calls though the landline failed rather more gracefully.
- DougN7 9y agoI still get the busy signal calling into the Seattle area from the Midwest once every 4-5 months or so when it's clear the other end wasn't on the phone. I'm not sure I got that before. So I wouldn't say the problem is solved, though the scale of communications has surely increased.
- gozur88 9y agoCross-talk was an analog problem related to center frequency drift on muxed lines. As soon as phone companies put in ATM networks it went away.
- kristofferR 9y agoHD Voice isn't common where you live yet?
- interfixus 9y agoNo idea. No idea what it is (Well, yes, HD, I get it). They can hidef or lodef as much as they please, I don't really care. All I want is for the latency to be gone.
- gozur88 9y agoI suspect that will require more powerful processing in the mobiles themselves.
- baldfat 9y ago> anyone who remembers true analog telephony knows what we have left behind in terms of synchronicity and natural flow of dialogue. You mean yelling into the phone really loud and than also knowing your paying $0.29 a minute? The technology was bad and the quality was bad unless you were calling locally. I think what your missing is people not talking to you and not being distracted by the internet or some other diversion?
- ksenzee 9y agoLong-distance audio quality in the 80s and 90s was excellent everywhere I lived in the US, no matter where I called. Remember the pin drop commercial?
- baldfat 9y agoYES, 100% right that was when they switched to digital from analog. The OP was saying that prior to the digital conversion it was better.
- lostlogin 9y agoNo. Local calls were always free here. The conversation could flow. The calls were of relatively poor audio quality but perfectly adequate for conversation. No delays, no distortion and no dropped calls. I’d have a call with quality so poor that meaning is lost requiring a “sorry, what was that.... are you there?” about half the time now.
- interfixus 9y agoNo. What I miss is telephone conversations without anyone constantly interrupting each other because we automatically interpret even tiny delays as pauses inviting us to speak.
- klibertp 9y agoThat seems more like a matter of culture though? It's not that hard to wait several seconds before starting to speak, right?
- sushid 9y agoDid you ever call internationally? My parents would call our grandparents using those phone cards in the 90s and they would sound like they were the good ol' two cans and a string technology.
- SkyPuncher 9y agoThe worst part about working from home is how difficult it is to have a conversation with anybody over the phone. The lag makes it very difficult for things to flow naturally.
- emmelaich 9y agoAbsolutely. Phone conversations now are awkward and annoying because of the lag and sound activated cancellation (simplex? - I don't know if this is a feature of the handset or something else). I find older people on the phone get frustrated with the modern phone system and they don't know why.
- interfixus 9y agoI'm older. I get frustrated. But I do know why. You're right, though - many don't. I find the whole thing a neat example how not every change is undilutedly for the better, and how we tend unwittingly to accept those creeping degradations. Being old and crotchety, I could name examples...
- somebehemoth 9y agoI would be shocked to find many young people with such intricate knowledge of the inner workings of phone systems. This is not something taught in school so I don't know what age has to do with it.