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SHIFT: Cellphone call quality is a disgrace
As cellphone providers keep adding feature upon feature, I'm wondering if anyone's going to do something about a phone's main reason for being: placing and receiving telephone calls. Is anyone noticing the abysmal quality of cellphone service, or is it just me? At least once every time I talk on my iPhone, I have to ask the person with whom I'm speaking to repeat what was just said. Is this the way phone calls must be from now on? Are we just getting used to this?
Why does this happen? There are many technical explanations for the laughable sound quality of U.S. cellphone service, but the main reason calls sound so awful is that no one revolts against it. Which means the providers can get away with putting 100,000 phone calls on a system where there should be 10,000, cutting corners everywhere, and generally offering service that's "good enough." But for me, it's not good enough … not good enough at all.
The Poor Bloodsuckers
Let's get the most glaring issue out of the way: dropped calls. Verizon has the least dropped calls in the U.S., while T-Mobile is the worst offender. Why does this happen at all? Because the United States is made up of such wide open spaces, carriers whine about how there's too much area to be covered. They cry poverty while charging $1,310 per megabyte for text messaging.
To be fair, it's not always easy for phone companies to install transmission towers. They have to get permission from local authorities to construct those eyesores, and the best technical locations for them often don't jibe with the preferences of city planners and residents. Placement of a cellphone tower near residential areas can even negatively affect already-depressed property values. The result of this not-in-my-backyard phenomenon: dead spots, dropped calls and unavailable service.
Can. You. Hear. Me. Now...?
That's bad enough, but sometimes there's a more subtle problem: The circuit of communication isn't completely severed, but delayed. For example, there's that slight amount of time (a 300-millisecond delay, or a half-second if it's cellphone-to-cellphone) it takes for your voice to be compressed into a digital signal, resulting in awkward pauses and interruptions in the conversation. It's just long enough for things to sometimes get confusing. But customers are willing to settle for this slipshod kind of service. This delay is a dirty little secret of cellphone providers, who consider a delay under 400 milliseconds to be acceptable. It's not.
It gets worse. Service providers can't seem to master that full-duplex trick that's been near-perfect in landlines for the past 130 years. Full-duplex (otherwise known as double-duplex) gives you the ability to talk at the same time a caller on the other end talks, and you can both still hear each other. But that would require two complete send-and-receive circuits, something the cellular providers are too cheap to do the right way.
Say What?
Then there's the most disgraceful, yet rarely mentioned problem with cellphone service today: dropping a word or two here and there. When the service can't deliver 100% of the words spoken, its value is drastically reduced. Look at this from another angle: What if you were watching a movie, and two or three times a minute, one word was dropped? Sometimes, it might not matter, but usually, missing one word in a sentence can alter its entire meaning. Subtlety is lost. Worst case, the sentence turns into complete gibberish. In such a word-dropping movie theater, people would be asking for their money back.
What if someone you were speaking with in person hiccupped every 10th word? What would happen if every time you talked, your ears shut down, rendering you deaf until you finished speaking? That's what we're putting up with, and no one seems to be too bothered about it. This is a pathetic state of affairs when analog cellphone technology from 15 years ago sounded many times better than today's "modern" service. A free call I made from Mumbai to Milwaukee on VoIP provider Skype sounded better than my $75-a-month cell phone service. It's just downright shameful.
Readers: Is anyone noticing? Why do we put up with it? Is this permanent? Does anyone care?
By DeMosr at 8:33 PM ON 05/07/09
There are even more interesting questions to ponder about this technological service -- that even as we complain about the quality of service of simple voice transmission, these same companies are preaching the glory of their new internet access.
I moved out to the country late last year -- one of those wide open spaces -- and lost all reasonable access to the internet. Of course, there's the dial up option (don't everyone laugh at once.). But my wife convinced me to look into getting an internet card from Sprint.
Alright, I tried it -- originally, still inside city limits, its service wasn't too bad, somewhat slower than cable, but still good enough for broadband applications, so I accepted the mandatory two year ball and chain contract. Then I moved to the country.
For months, it sucked. I may as well have HAD dialup for all the speed I had. It took forever to find a spot where there was more than "poor signal" in the house. It actually required a drastic re-arrangement of furniture, including a TV that wasn't even on most of the time (remember, no cable?) to suddenly give me as much as 40-60% signal.
So it doesn't suck quite so bad -- if I don't mind streaming video that skips, stops, etc. But then the really bad part of the deal emerged. They don't actually want you to USE their service.
That's right. They offer unlimited service -- as long as you don't use too much. And what, pray tell is too much?
YouTube. Do you like to browse YouTube, comedy clips, historic speeches, all the interesting, bizzarre, tragic funny things we like to put out there for all the world to see? Not on Sprint's service.
Your favorite radio station that plays all your favorite songs, and it broadcasts on its website? Great! Unless you use Sprint's service.
All the web sites run by the TV networks, broadcasting reruns of your favorite TV shows. Don't watch them on Sprint -- or else.
Because if you use over 5GB of data in a MONTH -- and I was surprised that was 1)possible and 2) ridiculously easy, especially if you actually enjoy the better things the internet has to offer, they say you use too much and have to be limited.
I never had this issue with cable.
So any advice? DSL? Satellite? Anything but a phone service pretending to be as good as its land based, analog counterparts?
By squatch81 at 9:19 PM ON 05/07/09
I used satellite (Starband via Dish Network) for a few years. Download speed was astronomical compared to dialup, fair to poor compared to real broadband. Upload speed compared to a good dialup connection. Reliability was an issue - position of the sun, sunspots, lightning within 20 miles - could all drop your connection without notice. Latency made online gaming impossible and sniping ebay auctions difficult.
Now I use DTNSpeednet. Works like long range WiFi, no latency problems, reliability has been variable lately. Still better than satellite.
By Jimmy at 10:01 PM ON 05/07/09
The 5GB a month data cap is standard for cell internet access. Then its an obnoxious amount per megabyte. Fortunately, the new Sprint 3/4G service has supposedly unlimited talk time... I'm considering ditching my cell phone for a data card and magic jack.
As for cable, there used to be NO CAP. Now its 250 - 350GB / month. Not bad, but it hampers progress in the end. Let's just all get T-1 lines and be done with it (or OC-12 lines :)
For country stuff, you might want to check in your area for microwave. For instance, near me (if I lived in one of those areas) I can get a pretty good service via wireless: http://www.dls.net
Used to be better (10mb up and down), but they must be concerned about lawsuits as they've dropped it to 6/6mbps.
By Sky Render at 11:22 PM ON 05/07/09
I suspect the main reason for the sub-par cellphone service in the US is due to MONEY. (It always is, isn't it?) I don't necessarily mean GREED, however. As already stated in the article, setting up towers isn't always easy. They are expensive, unattractive, and (as far as I know) they do not scale very well. Not only that, but state/local governments try to force cell companies into sharing their towers with other service providers in order to bridge dead zones, or into doing other things the companies would NEVER do willingly.
Essentially, what it boils down to is that the companies have no incentive to improve call quality, and if they do try, the profits will probably never approach the costs. Changes like these will only happen when they have to.
By BrockKane at 11:39 PM ON 05/07/09
Yes I agree, the service on my cell sucks too! And, yes....the poor service IS about GREED!
100,000 phones on a 10,000 phone network! I wouldn't care if they put a tower in my back yard, as long as I could get GOOD phone service!
By jack at 3:31 AM ON 05/08/09
Now I use DTNSpeednet. Works like long range WiFi, no latency problems,all the interesting, bizzarre, tragic funny things we like to put out there for all the world to see.
I can get a pretty good service via wireless: http://www.iyogi.net
By anova at 10:38 AM ON 05/08/09
Well, it seems you (the author) along with many other people chose their phone and service provider based on hype about the shiny apple product that is a 'must have' rather than reliability of service. I'm not trying to sell a certain service provider here, but sufficed to say, I have one 'other' than AT&T and I have nearly flawless call quality pretty much anywhere in the country that I go (from Detroit to Las Vegas & anywhere in between) with the exception of course of the middle of the Nevada / California desert & other such remote areas.
This is in regards to calls only, not data. That, with my experience is a different story with any service provider I've ever had. Sometimes the process and failures of wireless data services can be pretty much downright painful.
I guess my point is, that complaining about your service quality is akin to complaining if you had bought a 4 passenger BMW because you liked the color and fancy amenities, when you really needed a 15 passenger van because you have 8 kids to tote around.
Not trying to offend anyone, it's just my take.
By BruceA at 3:22 PM ON 05/08/09
can't agree with you more. But the age old problem is, what other choice do we have. The 3 major providers are all about the same. Sure, some have better coverage in certain areas then others, but none of them are a bargain for the service we get. And don't get me started on the bandwidth cap.
when a better service makes itself available, I'll be happy to switch.
By Sar44gent at 4:24 PM ON 05/08/09
Totally agree... i've been reading articles for about 4 months now and this is the first one i've replied to so what can we do?
By Sar44gent at 4:42 PM ON 05/08/09
about 2 years ago i had a sprint card; when they first came out. believe it or not it was unlimited, but i guessed they figured out that i was pulling 40-50 gigs a month, they had to do something about it. sorry i screwed everyone else up....lol no i know it wasn't just me. but they told me at the end of my contract (last summer) i could cancel my contract if i thought 5 gigs wasn't good enough (it isn't). so when i went to cancel, they charged me a 200 cancelation fee! WTF and now i have the sprint card still. on MacRumors.com there is also an article stating that the next generation of Macs may have 3G internet built in them. that would be awesome and might lower stingy mac prices. Plus there's another thing i've been reading about;internet tethering. You connect your iphone to your cpu and share the internet. probably not the fastest or a good idea for a primary source of internet, but if you're on the fly?
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/07/snow-leopard-evidence-of-built-in-3g-in-future-macs/
By Roz at 9:27 AM ON 05/09/09
I so love my magic jack !
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT
By ejmdesigns at 7:32 PM ON 05/10/09
Excellent article.
I switched from Verizon to Sprint about 5 years ago. At that point, I realized that switching cell phone providers is as futile as switching cable companies or insurance companies or anything we've decided we can't live without. Service sucks and the article is right: the only way we can make it better is to blow them out of the water with complaints. Apathy and complacency is the reason we're here in the first place.
By toenail at 11:59 AM ON 05/11/09
It's the same situation with airlines. The seats have thin seat cushions and no legroom, the planes are dirty and the staff rude and angry.
The whole world is becoming substandard, just prior to it's decline into the new Dark Ages
By devospice at 7:00 AM ON 05/14/09
By WiFoner at 8:10 AM ON 05/14/09
While we're all rightfully whining about cell service these days, please join me in hitting on Scott Forstall, Sr. VP at Apple in charge of all iPhone decisions, with the following proposal that I've already sent to him, which tangentially addresses what we're talking about from a slightly different perspective. This is a way that we, their customer base, may best be able to help them make the decisions that really matter to us, which should equate with more profit for them. Thanks for your help!
I'm a long-time, multi-deviced AT&T customer, but not yet an iPhone customer. Allow me to explain why. Thanks.
First off, Apple is not an ISP; you guys make wares (hard and soft). Not knowing the details of your existing cellular contract with AT&T, I can only speak to Apple about, I dare say, the profits you may be overlooking by not designing the iPhone to be exclusively WiFi-friendly while remaining optionally cellular. While I realize that Apple's poor stepchild, the iPod Touch, is exclusively a WiFi device, it remains an iPod piece of hardware that requires the use of in-ear headphones with remote and mic, which I refer to as "strings and things"---a nice setup for music listeners but not so nice for those of us wanting to place and receive Skype calls, for instance, with great frequency.
An iPhone, as many have come to know and appreciate it, is Apple's ergonomically ideal hardware format for making phone calls, cellular and WiFi. The cache of social network contacts I keep, and in light of this downturned economy, agree with me that Apple need only make the iPhone additionally operational and available for purchase without a mandatory cellular (3G network) connection. Granted, running an iPhone exclusively by WiFi would mean the customer must accept the inconveniences of interrupted or no signals, and no texting. But the many of us living on "the [economic] dark side of the moon," so to speak, would then more likely purchase an iPhone, mainly for the ease of WiFi phoning (Skype) AND for all the incredible features including access to email, Internet and the App Store, all with nothing more than a WiFi connection.
As it's been said, "build it and they will come." Please consider this most logical plea in light of what could be an enormous market share of new iPhone users more interested in keeping their personal budgets balanced (with money to spare also for App Store purchases) than helping to keep AT&T afloat. I certainly hope this request echoes with many other similar requests you may have by now already received. See what you can do, please. Thanks much!
By moviedemon at 9:02 AM ON 05/14/09
If it is ATT that the author is talking about, I'm wondering if his problem has more to do with his phone (or maybe it's localized.)
I'm not fan of ATT, and I'm moving to Verizon as soon as my contract is up. That being said, I really can't complain about dropped calls or coverage area.
I've had ATT for more than 5 years and I can count the number of dropped calls on my fingers. As for coverage area, my son went on a 1300 mile bicycle tour last summer, from Phoenix AZ to Boulder CO - riding through some of the most desolate terrain you're ever gonna find. In that whole trip, the only time he didn't have coverage was when he was staying at some old mining town in Utah.
And that problem he mentioned about dropping individual words - I've never heard of that in my life.
If he's really that concerned about it, maybe he needs to stay away from iPhones and get a phone that's just a phone.
By AmyH at 10:00 AM ON 05/14/09
It's no wonder cell phone call quality is crap. As a society, we have grown used to accepting lower quality in exchange for convenience.
I equate it to mp3s - mp3 players are convenient, but the sound quality of an mp3 (compared to LPs or CDs) is flat and lifeless. But you can't take LPs on a walk and you can't take 100+ CDs on vacation.
By eeee at 1:21 AM ON 05/15/09
ghytee
By nelle at 2:08 PM ON 06/25/09
I travel to Japan and England regularly. While there I've asked people about dropped calls. They don't know what I'm talking about. I live in a densly populated wealthy suburban area and my calls are dropped regularly. The answer: our calls are dropped because we expect and allow it. People in other countries expect good call quality and will accept nothing less!
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nelle:
I travel to Japan and England regularly. While there I've asked people about dropped calls. They don't know what ...More »