4 ms·

I don't like doing any kind of daily team voice conversation on the telephone network. my colleagues globally and those on cell phones sound like complete garb

I don't like doing any kind of daily team voice conversation on the telephone network. my colleagues globally and those on cell phones sound like complete garbage. I'd much prefer something like mumble or discord for daily team calls but alas..

vidanay 5y ago
It's absolutely astounding how far phone call audio quality has fallen in the last 30 years. I'd kill to have routine narrow-band analog POTS phone calls again.
- gkop 5y ago
  > in the last 30 years Isn’t the biggest contributor the discrete transition from circuit-switched copper to packet-switched data? You imply some sort of gradual erosion.. But anyhow yea, kids today will never know the special intimacy yielded by the low latency of a circuit-switched landline call.
  - vidanay 5y ago
    Yeah, for sure it was probably a five-year transition period, and crap since then.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > It's absolutely astounding how far phone call audio quality has fallen in the last 30 years. I'd kill to have routine narrow-band analog POTS phone calls again. What? The calls where the network saves bandwidth by dropping audible frequencies from each party's voice, so everyone sounds bizarre over the telephone? That's not the kind of thing I associate with "audio quality".
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    The low latency is pretty nice, but ya the actual audio quality is nothing to brag about.
    - gkop 5y ago
      Nothing to brag about, sure, but still remarkably good in comparison with calls today. Latency aside, the quality of copper POTS was still capable of being much better than, for example, my new iPhone making cellular calls on AT&T’s network. (I prefer FaceTime Audio)
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        This just isn't true. Narrowband audio quality is a dumpster fire compared to calls today. Narrowband drops all frequencies outside the range 300 - 3400 Hz. Not only is the top end much, much too low to accurately represent a human voice... the bottom end is too high!
      - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        Cell phones add noise so you don't notice the other side keying on and off during pauses.
- a-dub 5y ago
  POTS calls had noticably lower latency... which made conversations feel more natural. i often wonder if the popularity of sms and texting in general was largely fueled in the early days by the horrific high latency, lossy compression that made up early tdma, cdma, pcs and gsm mobile to mobile voice channels. latency and mobile to mobile "hd calling" have improved, but i still think landlines were more natural. multihour phone calls were comfortable... now they're exhausting.
  - after_care 5y ago
    > POTS calls had noticably lower latency... which made conversations feel more natural. I wonder if there is a market for two data-lines into a home, one that emphasizes low latency and another that emphasizes large volume. The lag in current video/audio communications is pretty bad.
    - a-dub 5y ago
      yeah. i was thinking about this a bunch at the start of the pandemic. what about building a video/audio conferencing system that focused on the psychophysical aspects of calls... things like reducing latency or mixing/synchronizing multiple channels over distances. problem is that there's a fair bit of fixed delay. a/d and d/a have fixed minimum latencies, as do codecs (although i think there's been focus and improvement there over the years), and then there is, of course, the public internet with its various hiccups that are often smoothed over with additional buffering/latency. i do wonder how much energy has been put into reducing perceived latency and the psychophysical aspects though. (also a very interesting domain) hard to beat the latency of a local analog signal though!
      - thomasjudge 5y ago
        There are a number of projects aimed at delivering low-latency audio over the internet, I think some were started or used by musicians trying to be able to play together remotely
        5y ago
leetrout 5y ago
Mumble is soooo good.

vidanay 5y ago

It's absolutely astounding how far phone call audio quality has fallen in the last 30 years. I'd kill to have routine narrow-band analog POTS phone calls again.

gkop 5y ago
> in the last 30 years Isn’t the biggest contributor the discrete transition from circuit-switched copper to packet-switched data? You imply some sort of gradual erosion.. But anyhow yea, kids today will never know the special intimacy yielded by the low latency of a circuit-switched landline call.
- vidanay 5y ago
  Yeah, for sure it was probably a five-year transition period, and crap since then.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> It's absolutely astounding how far phone call audio quality has fallen in the last 30 years. I'd kill to have routine narrow-band analog POTS phone calls again. What? The calls where the network saves bandwidth by dropping audible frequencies from each party's voice, so everyone sounds bizarre over the telephone? That's not the kind of thing I associate with "audio quality".
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  The low latency is pretty nice, but ya the actual audio quality is nothing to brag about.
  - gkop 5y ago
    Nothing to brag about, sure, but still remarkably good in comparison with calls today. Latency aside, the quality of copper POTS was still capable of being much better than, for example, my new iPhone making cellular calls on AT&T’s network. (I prefer FaceTime Audio)
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      This just isn't true. Narrowband audio quality is a dumpster fire compared to calls today. Narrowband drops all frequencies outside the range 300 - 3400 Hz. Not only is the top end much, much too low to accurately represent a human voice... the bottom end is too high!
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      Cell phones add noise so you don't notice the other side keying on and off during pauses.
a-dub 5y ago
POTS calls had noticably lower latency... which made conversations feel more natural. i often wonder if the popularity of sms and texting in general was largely fueled in the early days by the horrific high latency, lossy compression that made up early tdma, cdma, pcs and gsm mobile to mobile voice channels. latency and mobile to mobile "hd calling" have improved, but i still think landlines were more natural. multihour phone calls were comfortable... now they're exhausting.
- after_care 5y ago
  > POTS calls had noticably lower latency... which made conversations feel more natural. I wonder if there is a market for two data-lines into a home, one that emphasizes low latency and another that emphasizes large volume. The lag in current video/audio communications is pretty bad.
  - a-dub 5y ago
    yeah. i was thinking about this a bunch at the start of the pandemic. what about building a video/audio conferencing system that focused on the psychophysical aspects of calls... things like reducing latency or mixing/synchronizing multiple channels over distances. problem is that there's a fair bit of fixed delay. a/d and d/a have fixed minimum latencies, as do codecs (although i think there's been focus and improvement there over the years), and then there is, of course, the public internet with its various hiccups that are often smoothed over with additional buffering/latency. i do wonder how much energy has been put into reducing perceived latency and the psychophysical aspects though. (also a very interesting domain) hard to beat the latency of a local analog signal though!
    - thomasjudge 5y ago
      There are a number of projects aimed at delivering low-latency audio over the internet, I think some were started or used by musicians trying to be able to play together remotely
      - 5y ago

leetrout 5y ago

Mumble is soooo good.