It’s 2024 now, why is the audio quality of phone calls still so bad?

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We have the technology required to record, transmit and play high fidelity audio and video. Why are the phone calls’ quality still so bad as if we’re talking over walkie-talkies?

In other words, we definitely \*can\* have high quality phone calls. Why is it that the carriers (or whoever responsible for building the underlying infrastructure) choose to not make this improvement yet?

Edit: the question came up after finishing a call with my bank. I’m pretty sure the CS on the other end used a landline phone and the audio quality was no bueno. Maybe my impression on the phone calls’ quality can have some recency bias involved. So please correct me if phone call qualities aren’t that bad in your region or in your experience .

In: Technology

42 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The thing is that phones are widely used, and a lot of them are older analog and low-bitrate systems built on standards set when phones were a novelty in much of the world. Changes now would require either a patchwork of ad hoc solutions that would be a nightmare to maintain, or a global agreement to fundamentally change how telephone interoperability works. Providers don’t see much value in upgrading either way; the system as is works “well enough” and people have the option of skipping the POTS system and using the Internet if they so choose.

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