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> For those of you old enough to remember landlines, it reminds me of those [...] When we all switched to cell service audio quality took a huge hit I don't un

by lqet 5y ago

> For those of you old enough to remember landlines, it reminds me of those [...] When we all switched to cell service audio quality took a huge hit I don't understand - are landline phones not in use anymore? I only use a landline phone to communicate with the family, because I simply cannot stand the audio quality of cellphones for calls which last longer than a few minutes. Edit: In Germany, there are about 40 M active landlines. That is 1 landline phone for every 2 inhabitants, and this number seems to be have been fairly constant over the last 20 years [0]. [0] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/274339/umfrage/anzahl-der-telefonanschluesse-im-festnetz-in-deutschland/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/274339/umfrag...

wpm 5y ago
Not really no. Landline calls are often worse than cell phones in my experience as well, especially if the other person is on a cordless landline.
dahfizz 5y ago
Everyone already has cellphones, so a landline is an extra monthly cost for something that you're already paying for.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Unless you're of a certain age. People that already had long established landlines continue to pay for them even after getting a cell phone. And people still call them on those numbers as thats the number people know and remember vs just storing a cell number in their contacts. Also, for people getting an internet signal from the phone company (DSL), the landline was usually bundled in a package. They tried to make them viable for as long as possible.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    All the houses with grandparents in my family have lost landlines since all the grandparents have phones. Even the older grandmas who did not go past grade school who do not know a non English non Latin language like to use their WhatsApp to consume media from their cousins and other friends/relatives. And of course, FaceTiming grandkids.
- majjam 5y ago
  Its spam calls that ruined it for me
the-dude 5y ago
Landlines have been digitized too, a distinct difference to what an analog landline offered. It was more intimate, you could hear breathing for example.
- deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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- wanderingstan 5y ago
  I had forgotten about hearing breathing; you’re absolutely right it was more intimate.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    As I remember it, one could be silent and still be together.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  I think that at least for long distance calls, landline calls have been digitized and packet switched since the 70's, didn't they?
  - EGreg 5y ago
    No. Otherwise why would things cost $3 a minute until VOIP?
    - philjohn 5y ago
      Because VOIP hadn't come along, so they had a monopoly and could charge pretty much what they wanted. They switched to digital because it reduced their costs, instead of multiple trunk lines you could get away with fewer fibre lines.
      - 5y ago
webmobdev 5y ago
It is on the decline in India too: > In the past decade, landline subscriber base has been on a decline, with connections reducing from 36.76 million as of 31 January, 2010 to 20.58 million as of 31 January, 2020. Of the total telecom 1.18 billion connections, only 20.26 million, or less than 2%, were landline as of February. - https://www.livemint.com/industry/telecom/trai-says-declining-landline-subscriber-base-a-concern-11594395547709.html https://www.livemint.com/industry/telecom/trai-says-declinin... (And yes, landline phones do offer better voice quality. Even if I am calling from a cellphone, I prefer to call someone on their landline. )
- kkielhofner 5y ago
  I used to joke that even with extended frequency response, etc cell phones and VoIP can certainly sound worse. I would compare the Sprint "pin drop" commercials[0] to the (at the time) Verizon Wireless "Can you hear my now?" campaign[1] with the joke being - progress from a pin drop to yelling "Can you hear me know? How's this? Is this better? Sorry about that." 20 years of progress! Of course now (for the most part) packet loss concealment and other advanced technologies have equalized a bit of this but there are still days where I miss B-channels on a T1 PRI. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dIDl8sjJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dIDl8sjJk [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0xsZCRp4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0xsZCRp4g
mdasen 5y ago
Landlines are expensive in a lot of places. Looking it up, a landline would cost me $70/mo which is significantly more than my mobile plan. I think different countries have different norms around things like landlines - or even texting. In the US, people ignored texting for a very long time and preferred to call people even if it was just a short note. In terms of audio quality, VoLTE has improved that quite a bit when both sides will inter-operate with HD voice. Older stuff often used 8-12kbps and primitive codecs to encode your voice which simply a lot of compression. I know Speex has had some great results at low bitrates, but that's a far newer codec. However, I believe VoLTE's AMR-WB codec still chops everything about 7,000 Hz. T-Mobile US and Verizon have both implemented EVS which goes up to 14,000 Hz. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-make-your-cell-phone-calls-sound-better https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-make-your-cell-phone-cal... Of course I'd find a Sascha Segan article when looking to confirm some information. It has some great recordings to compare and you can see huge differences depending on carrier implementations. The Sprint-Sprint test shows very poor quality. The T-Mobile 2G test also shows how old networks just used poor codecs with limited bitrates. You can even hear distinct differences between the T-Mobile-T-Mobile call and the Verizon-Verizon call where the Verizon call just sounds significantly less rich. Back in the day, calls used a huge amount of network capacity. Even today, because calls need a more guaranteed bitrate, networks need to leave some extra room for them. 128kbps of streaming music isn't the same as 128kbps of real-time voice because the network can deliver 15 seconds of music and then it can deliver the 16th second of music any time in the next 15 seconds. Real-time two-way communications don't have that luxury. Still, bumping up the bitrate on communications makes a big difference and networks today should be more than capable of handling it. I don't know what German operators have implemented, but cell phones have come a decent way in terms of audio quality, though carriers being lazy and interoperability problems can mean that consumers don't always get the benefits in the real world.
- olyjohn 5y ago
  My landline here near Seattle is around $60/mo. I don't know why... back when I first set up a land line here, it was $25/mo. The quality of the line has deteriorated so bad, there's noise on it, they won't bother to fix it. A few years ago the line had a physical break somewhere between my house and the DSLAM. They switched me to another pair of copper. I have 3 pairs of copper coming into my house, but now one is totally dead, and I will never be able to use it again. Apparently our street is at full capacity and they have no plans to repair or add more lines. The other problem with land lines is the amount of robocalls you get on them. The phone companies offer no way to truly block them. Every blocking service they offer relies on Caller ID, and with the robocallers spoofing Caller ID and randomizing numbers, the blocking is totally ineffective. I literally get 5-8 calls a day. They used to offer a call blocking service, where a machine would answer, and tell you to hang up, or press 1 if you wanted to connect. This service no longer exists, and the other call (ineffective) blocking services (they offer at least 3 or 4) each cost about $6/mo each. My belief is that they are making tons of money allowing unauthenticated calls into their network, that they have no desire to actually block any calls. Also the relatively small number of landlines left leaves a rather small audience of people to complain. So most people don't even know this is a problem.
calessian 5y ago
I wonder how much that translates into actual use. A lot of internet providers (in Germany) technically include a landline using VoIP, but that doesn’t reflect the number of calls necessarily. I’ve made some calls, but less than five in the last few years.

by lqet 5y ago

wpm 5y ago

Not really no. Landline calls are often worse than cell phones in my experience as well, especially if the other person is on a cordless landline.

dahfizz 5y ago

Everyone already has cellphones, so a landline is an extra monthly cost for something that you're already paying for.

dylan604 5y ago
Unless you're of a certain age. People that already had long established landlines continue to pay for them even after getting a cell phone. And people still call them on those numbers as thats the number people know and remember vs just storing a cell number in their contacts. Also, for people getting an internet signal from the phone company (DSL), the landline was usually bundled in a package. They tried to make them viable for as long as possible.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  All the houses with grandparents in my family have lost landlines since all the grandparents have phones. Even the older grandmas who did not go past grade school who do not know a non English non Latin language like to use their WhatsApp to consume media from their cousins and other friends/relatives. And of course, FaceTiming grandkids.
majjam 5y ago
Its spam calls that ruined it for me

the-dude 5y ago

Landlines have been digitized too, a distinct difference to what an analog landline offered. It was more intimate, you could hear breathing for example.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wanderingstan 5y ago
I had forgotten about hearing breathing; you’re absolutely right it was more intimate.
- the-dude 5y ago
  As I remember it, one could be silent and still be together.
elzbardico 5y ago
I think that at least for long distance calls, landline calls have been digitized and packet switched since the 70's, didn't they?
- EGreg 5y ago
  No. Otherwise why would things cost $3 a minute until VOIP?
  - philjohn 5y ago
    Because VOIP hadn't come along, so they had a monopoly and could charge pretty much what they wanted. They switched to digital because it reduced their costs, instead of multiple trunk lines you could get away with fewer fibre lines.
    - 5y ago

webmobdev 5y ago

It is on the decline in India too: > In the past decade, landline subscriber base has been on a decline, with connections reducing from 36.76 million as of 31 January, 2010 to 20.58 million as of 31 January, 2020. Of the total telecom 1.18 billion connections, only 20.26 million, or less than 2%, were landline as of February. - https://www.livemint.com/industry/telecom/trai-says-declining-landline-subscriber-base-a-concern-11594395547709.html https://www.livemint.com/industry/telecom/trai-says-declinin... (And yes, landline phones do offer better voice quality. Even if I am calling from a cellphone, I prefer to call someone on their landline. )

kkielhofner 5y ago
I used to joke that even with extended frequency response, etc cell phones and VoIP can certainly sound worse. I would compare the Sprint "pin drop" commercials[0] to the (at the time) Verizon Wireless "Can you hear my now?" campaign[1] with the joke being - progress from a pin drop to yelling "Can you hear me know? How's this? Is this better? Sorry about that." 20 years of progress! Of course now (for the most part) packet loss concealment and other advanced technologies have equalized a bit of this but there are still days where I miss B-channels on a T1 PRI. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dIDl8sjJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dIDl8sjJk [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0xsZCRp4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0xsZCRp4g

mdasen 5y ago

Landlines are expensive in a lot of places. Looking it up, a landline would cost me $70/mo which is significantly more than my mobile plan. I think different countries have different norms around things like landlines - or even texting. In the US, people ignored texting for a very long time and preferred to call people even if it was just a short note. In terms of audio quality, VoLTE has improved that quite a bit when both sides will inter-operate with HD voice. Older stuff often used 8-12kbps and primitive codecs to encode your voice which simply a lot of compression. I know Speex has had some great results at low bitrates, but that's a far newer codec. However, I believe VoLTE's AMR-WB codec still chops everything about 7,000 Hz. T-Mobile US and Verizon have both implemented EVS which goes up to 14,000 Hz. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-make-your-cell-phone-calls-sound-better https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-make-your-cell-phone-cal... Of course I'd find a Sascha Segan article when looking to confirm some information. It has some great recordings to compare and you can see huge differences depending on carrier implementations. The Sprint-Sprint test shows very poor quality. The T-Mobile 2G test also shows how old networks just used poor codecs with limited bitrates. You can even hear distinct differences between the T-Mobile-T-Mobile call and the Verizon-Verizon call where the Verizon call just sounds significantly less rich. Back in the day, calls used a huge amount of network capacity. Even today, because calls need a more guaranteed bitrate, networks need to leave some extra room for them. 128kbps of streaming music isn't the same as 128kbps of real-time voice because the network can deliver 15 seconds of music and then it can deliver the 16th second of music any time in the next 15 seconds. Real-time two-way communications don't have that luxury. Still, bumping up the bitrate on communications makes a big difference and networks today should be more than capable of handling it. I don't know what German operators have implemented, but cell phones have come a decent way in terms of audio quality, though carriers being lazy and interoperability problems can mean that consumers don't always get the benefits in the real world.

olyjohn 5y ago
My landline here near Seattle is around $60/mo. I don't know why... back when I first set up a land line here, it was $25/mo. The quality of the line has deteriorated so bad, there's noise on it, they won't bother to fix it. A few years ago the line had a physical break somewhere between my house and the DSLAM. They switched me to another pair of copper. I have 3 pairs of copper coming into my house, but now one is totally dead, and I will never be able to use it again. Apparently our street is at full capacity and they have no plans to repair or add more lines. The other problem with land lines is the amount of robocalls you get on them. The phone companies offer no way to truly block them. Every blocking service they offer relies on Caller ID, and with the robocallers spoofing Caller ID and randomizing numbers, the blocking is totally ineffective. I literally get 5-8 calls a day. They used to offer a call blocking service, where a machine would answer, and tell you to hang up, or press 1 if you wanted to connect. This service no longer exists, and the other call (ineffective) blocking services (they offer at least 3 or 4) each cost about $6/mo each. My belief is that they are making tons of money allowing unauthenticated calls into their network, that they have no desire to actually block any calls. Also the relatively small number of landlines left leaves a rather small audience of people to complain. So most people don't even know this is a problem.

calessian 5y ago

I wonder how much that translates into actual use. A lot of internet providers (in Germany) technically include a landline using VoIP, but that doesn’t reflect the number of calls necessarily. I’ve made some calls, but less than five in the last few years.