I want my landline back

July 15, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

(Note: Our MobileBeat 2009 conference is now completely sold out. We hope you got your ticket!)

Back to my post: The mobile beat here at VentureBeat doesn’t belong to me, but like everyone else here I got sucked into the world of smartphones. And MobileBeat 2009 planning here at the office often devolved into talking about the current state of the industry. It also got me to pay more attention to the quality of my calls.

The quality of calls on both my Verizon BlackBerry and my AT&T iPhone is bad enough to make me use Twitter instead. There are four problems I can point to that I’m sure the folks at AT&T and Verizon are familiar with:

1. Dropped calls. At least twice a day I realize I’ve been talking to myself for half a minute.

2. Delays in voice transmissions. Try this sometime: Sit side by side with a friend and conduct a cellphone conversation. You’ll be surprised at how long the delays on you speech in both directions is. That’s why cellphone conversations always feel frustratingly not engaged.

3. Echo, echo, echo. This is the one I don’t get. How could the digitized phone signal develop an echo? Someone should explain this to me.

4. No premium grade calling. For some calls, I’d pay for better quality with none of the problems above, and none of several others. Why can’t I buy that?

These will be my questions to executives at MobileBeat 2009 tomorrow. Bring your answers. Please.

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About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • sample032
    "At least twice a day I realize I’ve been talking to myself for half a minute"

    I do this even when I'm not on the phone, so it doesn't bug me, so much.

    "How could the digitized phone signal develop an echo? Someone should explain this to me."

    I think I've mostly heard echos from speakerphones. They have to cancel the sound the mic pics up from the speaker, but they're not perfect, so some of the sound is sent back to whoever said it.
  • Costa Gillespie
    The echo Paul refers to is probably not to do with the speaker. There is another echo that can occur which is entirely a network phenomenon. Paul is right to complain. The technology exists to both cancel this echo when it occurs, as well as to prevent it from happening in the first place. It costs money, of course. If Americans continue to choose cell service on price alone, expect to continue to have echo.
  • Paul, greetings from the UK Venture Capital scene. I was gobsmacked when I read your post: voice calls dropping? At a point in time when the European international carriers like Vodafone and Telefonica are battling the data services arena, because voice is "oh-so-1999", it is shocking to hear the U.S. carriers still have teething problems with their networks. My question would be: when was the last time that these networks were upgraded to a higher bandwidth? why does their roaming - from network cell to network cell in the big beehive of wireless connectivity is so poor?
    My thoughts go out to you and other U.S. mobile phone users
  • Costa Gillespie
    The poor quality of cell calls is market forces at work, a race-to-the-bottom. U.S. carriers will only develop what most people want, without regard to the users out at the tail.

    Rural users are out on the tail, as are customers who choose a phone/network based on quality (rather than price). European networks, with there state-supported, standards-based approach and long term roadmap, deliver higher quality and cover even remote areas.