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
Some cell service modes do offer higher quality because the phones at both end are compatible with new digital technology, but the system overall is based on the same things the telephone industry had been doing for over a hundred years prior.
In analog service, the frequency range is limited between around 300hz to 3.5KHz, which is just enough bandwidth to hear speech decently (and not much more). This is due to limitations and compromises necessary for analog telephone service to handle so many lines at once, including methods that allow multiple voice signals down the same wires.
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