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

Compatibility with old phone systems.

While the number of old phone systems is decreasing in favor of VOIP (Internet phones) or no landline at all in favor of cell phones… there are still plenty of people using analog phones on dedicated phone lines, and plenty of houses where that is the only connection. 

While your cell phone could use an internet signal to send high fidelity audio, the backbone of the phone network is not prepared to accept that. This is because it could be sending that call out on a line that does not support the higher quality, to a phone that does not support it.

Because phones are an important utility that even has safety implications, like the ability to call 911, there are legal requirements for phone companies to maintain that support. While a phone company may be able to build support for higher quality audio between compatible devices, that wouldn’t be able to drop support for the old systems, so there is little benefit to offset the cost of that upgrade.

Meanwhile customers who care can make FaceTime or Facebook or Zoom calls if they want to take advantage of the internet’s ability to send higher quality audio, so there isn’t much pressure on phone companies to improve their service. 

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