Why do cellular voice calls still sound like crap?

[nexus5rocks]

My LTE connection is faster than my cable connection, yet calls still sound like crap. Why is that?
Would using VOIP on my phone be any better?

 

[cmdrdredd]

I've never noticed that my audio sounds bad...it sounds quite good actually. If you told me 12 years ago that cellphones today would sound like someone was next to you I'd never believe it. It really has come that far.

There are other factors like signal strength, interference, what device you are using. Not every phone has the same clarity in the speaker and microphone.

 

[nexus5rocks]

I've never noticed that my audio sounds bad...it sounds quite good actually. If you told me 12 years ago that cellphones today would sound like someone was next to you I'd never believe it. It really has come that far.

There are other factors like signal strength, interference, what device you are using. Not every phone has the same clarity in the speaker and microphone.

Compared to a landline, it sounds like crap. That's my baseline for comparison.
With phones and networks capable of so much bandwidth, I'd expect it to come close.

 

[SunnyD]

Audio that is digitized into roughly the equivalent of 6KHz of bandwidth, heavily compressed over a rather high latency radio link that then gets shoved into a PSTN and/or VOIP network (a few times over, and probably compressed again) and then potentially back again depending on who's on the other end of the line.

Couple that with the fact that you're dealing with as small a mic and speaker as possible with an audio circuit and amplifiers that aren't really going to go winning any audiophile awards because they're designed to be cheap and power efficient.

There's only so much you're ever going to do with those technical limitations. Of course it's going to sound like crap.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i remember reading in some trade magazine about 5 years ago how we were only a year or so away from having crystal clear lte calls and how some prepaid company was going to be the first to do it. i stilll hasnt happened, voice still sounds tha same as it did 40 years ago. voice should sound at least as good as youtube audio

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

My LTE connection is faster than my cable connection, yet calls still sound like crap. Why is that?
Would using VOIP on my phone be any better?

It may surprise you, but audio quality in New Zealand is pretty good. It must be something to do with your network infrastructure or compression algorithms or...something.

When we call my aunt it sounds terrible, and I always thought that was because the signal is travelling 10,000km or however far it is. But when I actually flew to LA and called my aunt from there it still sounded like absolute shit.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

On my HTC M8 and or my bluetooth headset on verzion it doesn't sound bad, but I probably just don't care enough about it to notice.

 

[mikegg]

My LTE connection is faster than my cable connection, yet calls still sound like crap. Why is that?
Would using VOIP on my phone be any better?

Cause very few phones/carriers have VoLTE (voice over LTE).

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

But wasn't there talk of HD Voice or whatever? This isn't even about VoLTE.

I once thought cellular calls were fine but the more I need to work with our other sites, the more conference calls I make, and I will take any opportunity I can to be on a land line. It makes following the call a lot easier as its FAR easier to hear.

Edit: Yeah the US carriers have just been behind. I remember reading about this for ages. Seems like the international carriers have deployed this already because I remember my voice calls being crystal clear in Asia. YEAH 'MURICA!

 

[biostud]

I think it's pretty much the same, but some things that affect the quality:
-More background noise/wind outside.
-Better speakers/microphones in land line phones
-low signal strength

 

[OBLAMA2009]

I think it's pretty much the same, but some things that affect the quality:
-More background noise/wind outside.
-Better speakers/microphones in land line phones
-low signal strength

i dont think hes talking about getting better reception on current technology. theres going to be technology that will make phone calls sound like the person is in the room with you

 

[paperwastage]

T-Mobile had HD voice over umts for a while, but both parties needed a headset supporting HD voice and be on the same network

Think Sprint added support recently too

I think all carriers are looking to use hdvoice on volte. VoIP could be better depending which codec is used and how much bandwidth is allocated. I've had conferences on Google hangouts on mobile LTE, definitely better than regular gsm calls

Here's a sample of HD vice

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2458374,00.asp

 

[Red Storm]

In my experience it depends on the phone you're using. Some make calls sound poor, while others do very good.

 

[Demo24]

My LTE connection is faster than my cable connection, yet calls still sound like crap. Why is that?
Would using VOIP on my phone be any better?

In the US no big carrier has yet to bring VoLTE to the masses, so you aren't using LTE for your phone calls. That is supposed to change towards the end of this year and into the next. No idea what markets will get it first though, although Verizon is planning on launching in many at once and I've heard end of this year roughly. This should greatly improve the quality.

However, I've not tried voip but it may indeed be better.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

T-Mobile has HD Voice and it works great. Basically all of the top phones within the last year and on has it. So calls from my iPhone to my friend's Galaxy S 4 or their BlackBerry Q10 all have HD Voice. Only thing is that both people have to be on T-Mobile.

 

[BrightCandle]

Unless they have actually implemented the increased bandwidth voice protocols its most likely the same problem mobiles have had since the beginning - that the voice part gets about 9-12kbit/s worth of bandwidth. The audio on mobile phones is enormously compressed, you can hear it especially when they play music down them (ahh that waiting music we all hate) as that has zero bass and just sounds very hollow. That is just the incredibly narrow band that is a mobile voice channel.

I did hear that LTE was meant to come with a much increased bandwidth for voice, but I suspect they haven't done that yet for compatibility with other mobiles or some other reason. So its probably still running on the same old mobile voice protocol that was designed for the bandwidth on offer in the 1980s.

 

[WelshBloke]

But wasn't there talk of HD Voice or whatever? This isn't even about VoLTE.

I once thought cellular calls were fine but the more I need to work with our other sites, the more conference calls I make, and I will take any opportunity I can to be on a land line. It makes following the call a lot easier as its FAR easier to hear.

Edit: Yeah the US carriers have just been behind. I remember reading about this for ages. Seems like the international carriers have deployed this already because I remember my voice calls being crystal clear in Asia. YEAH 'MURICA!

Whoa! I didn't realise you guys didn't have this yet. Any particular reason why your providers are holding back?

 

[paperwastage]

NVR mind

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Whoa! I didn't realise you guys didn't have this yet. Any particular reason why your providers are holding back?

Because they're so busy subsidizing iPhones and Galaxy S phones? Haha. Come on.

I think it's interesting though. The US carriers definitely did push LTE deployment earlier than the rest of the world, but when it comes to voice calls, we lagged? I find that funny because most of the developed world is using WhatsApp, Line, and Facebook Messenger extensively. You don't see people calling and shouting into phones on the subway or bus, but in the US it's the opposite. Yet we have lower quality voice calls? Sigh.

I do wonder from a technical perspective though, did we just not have enough bandwidth to deploy it on 2G/3G? I imagine companies like AT&T had enough spectrum on 1900 and 850 to make it work.

 

[Red Storm]

My work issued iPhone 5 on Sprint is really really bad at voice calls, even at max volume it's sometimes hard to hear and not at all clear. Had the opposite experience with a Lumia 521 on T-Mobile, it was one of the better sounding phones I've ever used (in terms of voice calls).

 

[number29ag]

Three UK supports HD voice. As long as you have a phone that supports it and calling someone on the same network also with a supported phone, you'll notice an exceptional difference

 

[bearxor]

If you're an iPhone user who calls mostly other iPhone users, start using Facetime Audio. It is awesome.

 

[Cruisin1]

My LTE connection is faster than my cable connection, yet calls still sound like crap. Why is that?
Would using VOIP on my phone be any better?

Simple answer is no. Response time on LTE no matter how fast is still pretty high. It's not the bandwidth on VOIP that is the bottleneck but the response time. In fact VOIP doesn't require much bandwidth comparatively.

 

[BrightCandle]

Simple answer is no. Response time on LTE no matter how fast is still pretty high. It's not the bandwidth on VOIP that is the bottleneck but the response time. In fact VOIP doesn't require much bandwidth comparatively.

It shouldn't be as bad with a persistence connection.

Google did a wonderful presentation a few years ago (this was on 3G) where they basically showed that much of the problem with the performance of phones for websites and such was due to initial setup times varying enormously. That is network overhead due to sleep states and cell tower switching and such. But once you get over that initial latency of the initial connection the bandwidth should be relatively stable and the latency dramatically reduced. It should be more like normal internet latency rather than the latency you are used to when browsing the internet on a phone.

Its still going to be less consistent due to the amount of interference and the shared bandwidth, but I suspect VOIP is likely to work pretty well on LTE assuming your carrier has with sufficient bandwidth on offer in your cell at that moment.