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Cellphones Really Are Not As Good As They Were 10 Years Ago At Making Calls (telegraph.co.uk)
whoever57 writes: If you ever thought that your cellphone does not make calls as well as the cellphone you had 10 years ago, you may be right. The UK's Ofcom (roughly equivalent to the FCC) tested cellphones and found that many needed a much higher signal than the standards recommend in order to send and receive data. This applied to 2G, 3G and 4G connections. Confirmation bias has me nodding along; Google Fi has been dropping a huge percentage of my calls lately, and I've been unfairly reminiscing about the good old days with a heavy Nokia 5100 series phone.
It's not really a mystery. Phones used to have external antennas, and now they're not only internal but the phones themselves have mostly metal cases (because it feels so much more "premium") with a tiny plastic window for the antenna because that metal blocks the radio waves. This is textbook "form over function" design.
Living in Houston, TX with Verizon as my provider; I've never had a dropped call while talking (hands free) and driving for over an hour in and around the city. Perhaps it's just the increase in cell tower coverage and technology, but not having dropped calls is a massive, HUGE improvement over what it was 10 years ago!
Life is not for the lazy.
Ten years ago data was almost unheard of in cell phones. It was basically limited to SMS. People simply used their phones less.
Now EVERYONE has a phone and they're constantly in-use. Congestion is probably the bigger factor.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
2G, 3G, and 4G refer only to the datastream portion of the cellular system. Voice calls that do not use VoIP us the voice channel, which is completely independent of "G."
Admittedly though, more and more carriers are switching the voice systems off and using VoIP instead, so yeah we all know that cellular data sucks, and VoIP also sucks, so when you combine sucky with sucky you get an extra hot steaming pile of fail.
I get signal everywhere but in my house. So if signal isn't as good, meh.
There's a spot in my house where the signal is pretty weak, but I found over the last ten years that each new iPhone I bought was less likely than its predecessor to drop out or lose a call when I walked through that place. With my current phone, I can see the signal strength drop to one bar, but the connection generally remains up.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It works perfectly. And I don't need to browse the web while I'm at the restaurant, I don't use social media, I already have a navigation system in my car, so I have no need for a smartphone.
"Antenna's serve a purpose"
So do apostrophes. That wasn't one of them, though.
You do not have to buy a silly smartphone.
You can just get a strong decent old phone, like the famous Nokia 3310, replace the battery by a new shiny one in top condition, and you can have many years of good calls.
I find that usability has declined greatly since my Desire Z. I truly wish I had the means to design my own smartphone. It would look a lot like a Nokia Communicator 9500...
Put all these tradeoffs together, and you get a device that's just barely "good enough" to do any of these things, but really fails at it's once-core function, to "make and receive voice calls".
Fails is a very harsh word. They may be marginally less capable than some old dumb phones, but they certainly don't fail at making and receiving voice calls. I do it all the time.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The only way I know of to keep a competitive environment where cellular carriers cannot fuck with user experiences and device makers get a fair shake is to prevent cellular services companies from providing the phones. It's anecdotal (because I don't know of any app that will allow me to prove this), but I am certain TMobile drops data connections of my phone detects wifi signals nearby - even if Wifi is off. It basically forces me to use a wifi signal even though I'm perfectly happy using the cellular data signal that I pay for. It happens in good coverage areas. If devices were decoupled from cellular service providers, the device makers would have much more incentive to show the user that the device is not causing the issue. And, the services would have much more incentive to show which devices play well with their networks. Since cell phone services control the device, they can install the worlds worst battery-hogging software that just annoys the user - and prevent the user from removing it.
So, to sum it up:
- cellular service companies are evil, make too much money, and don't spend enough money upgrading their networks
- cellular device companies need to grow a backbone and prevent cellular services from screwing up the user experience
- cellular service companies should not be able to control every aspect of the cellular device
- cellular services AT&T and Verizon are especially evil
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Speak for yourself, instead of assuming you know what everyone in the world is thinking.
My Galaxy Note 3 is a pretty good E-Reader, and MP3 player
although bettery life isn't so good if you leave it connected to the cell network
When I was shopping for a phone I remember wishing they had specifications like they have for amateur radio gear. Stuff like antenna pattern, antenna gain, maybe some effective radiated power, then some specs on the receiver for sensitivity, selectivity, and spurious and image rejection ratio. But even this article was too chicken to release any data.
Cellphones were dramatically better at calls back in the analog days. I have an audiovox phone that the audio was 900X better than the most expensive cellphone today and even in fringe areas you could still make that call through the static as human brains are good at filtering signals and pulling speech out.
Granted I dont miss the 2 hour talk time and having to charge the damn thing 3 times a day, nor that it made even a Galaxy Tablet look small. Oh and YES I did have a smartphone before all of you as well, I also carried a Nokia 9000. That was back in 1996. that damn thing had to be on a charger constantly.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
10 years ago (in the US), I got my first cell-phone - a simple feature-phone. No data plan. SMS/texts were $0.20/each. It was a LG flip-phone on a Verizon family contract (I will NEVER buy another LG phone.) These days, I carry around an iPhone4 on an AT&T monthly family plan..
I'm hardly a first adopter of phones.
That said, even I've noticed the changes in the cell-phone networks. And the most used feature of my phone is the calendar & alarms. Actual real-time communication with a smart-phone seems to be an afterthought.
This. I really do not like "talking" on my phone and seldom do. I don't care if it can make a call or not as long as I have connectivity for SMS and internet.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Apple tried this a few years ago with the iPhone 4. It didn't work out so well. Simply holding the phone in the "wrong way" made it drop the connection.
[Cut back to Fry, who is relaxing, when his head shakes and we hear a bell ringing. A telephone icon is shown on the eyePhone screen.]
Fry: What's happening to me? Is it puberty?
Bender: It's a phone call, dingus.
Fry: These eyePhones are phones, too?
Bender: Duh!
I don't call my microwave a refrigerator. Why would you call a computer a phone?
And yet everyone still calls them phones, and they seem to still include telephony function.
I am certain TMobile drops data connections of my phone detects wifi signals nearby
Actually, this might be more a function of the same antenna being used for cellular, bluetooth, and wifi signals.
Antennas, the reason? Cellphone communications have always been expensive. At the beginning of the mobile phone era, the subscribers fee had to cover the cost of the new infrastructure etc... Then, 15 years later, while the number of subscribers exploded, the monthly cost to use a cellphone is still high. Sure, there were some technological improvements, but did the carriers largely upgrade their infrastructure to cope with all that traffic? Or did they make sure to keep the milk cow alive?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The Nokia 5100 from 2003 wasn't heavy. Check the specs at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's 104 grams.
Comparison:
2007 iPhone: 135 g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2011 Samsung Galaxy S2 116 g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2011 iPhone 4S 140 g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2015 Samsung Galaxy S6 138 g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2015 iPhone 6S 143 g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Phones got bigger and heavier, which is not a surprise also considering all the new stuff that got packed inside vs the feature phones era.
Earnest question. Nearly everyone I know uses Skype, Facetime, and/or messaging for all their communication. Sure we still have to use cellular occasionally but it's not the norm.
1. Complexity creeping everywhere
2. Governments requiring surveillance functions from network operators
3. Governments requiring surveillance functions in handsets
4. Governments using "offline" half-legal surveillance / eavesdropping in-place
5. Network operators overselling capacity
6. Multiband radios (700/900/1800/1900/2100MHz) + multiple radios close together (GSM/CDMA + wifi + BT + NFC)
7. Multiple devices close together (~2 phones, tablet, laptop, IOT devices)
8. Multiple cheap low quality radio/cell devices in use upping the noise floor
The neck problems are actually being referred to as "Text Neck" which is hilarious.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Well, since one of the more popular phone lines is the iPhone, and since the late Steve Jobs helpfully pointed out that most of the users are holding it wrong, is this much of a surprise?
My phone application sits in a folder on the second screen of my iPhone, next to 'TimeHop'. It is one of the least important functions that my 'phone' has. It may be worse at making calls than older phones used to be, but I make an order of magnitude fewer calls than I used to as well. If I spend more than a couple hours total on the phone a YEAR, I'd be surprised.
Phoning someplace is my last resort. If I've got to phone somewhere and there's no other choice, I'll actually consider whether or not I want to shop there/use that service.
Good riddance.
As usual. It should be:
Basic Cellphones Better at Making Calls than Smartphones.
The external was a simple coil/linear antennae. The new antennae's in phones use a design that is "Fractal" in nature. This "Fractal" nature for antennae's leading to a much larger signal gain over traditional antennae was discovered by a German Boy Scout working on his Ham radio license. He experimented with different designs, and found a clear signal gain the more he made the antenna fractal in nature (he didn't immediately understand that it was fractal, but, he had the data plotted against various designs that were basically loops of more and more internal opposing bends (think more and more pointed star instead of circle). When this data/finding was analyzed and he began working with experts in the field, and himself learned more about fractals, he ended up with a patent on the concept. That is why "All of the Sudden" phones went from having external antennae to internal. The internal is a "Fractal" antennae that can be much, much, much more compact while have much better gain etc.
About four or five years ago, I heard a review of celphones on NPR. They went on for 10 min about K3wl features of a half a dozen or dozen new phones, then, to wrap up, asked the question of "how about voice quality?".
The response was that one was more-or-less ok, one mediocre, and the rest terrible.
Then there's the 50% of you with your bloody mobiles... 15 years ago, I used to get aggravated by idiots in Chicago with the LATESTK3WL tiny phone... that they'd entertain half an el car (with all the noise) with their "private conversation". It's the same now, as you idiots hold the phone at chest level, or waist level, and yell at it/
And give me a break - it's over a century and a quarter since the telephone was invented, and we still have about the same audio quality as phone made in, say, the 1940s... except on cellphones, where it's *worse*.
mark, who uses his flip phone to make, y'know,
phone calls to *talk* to people"
I wonder if any of this is bugs hacks added to the radio firmware for the security agencies (and/or other malware purveyors)? B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Confirmation bias has me nodding along;
I'm convinced that confirmation bias strongly affects human reactions, and this is just the evidence I needed to prove it.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Well, the technology already spoke for me. If phones are worse now at being "telephones" and better at literally everything else, it stands to reason that this is some sort of pattern.
If they're going to test it properly, they should take a phone from 10 years ago as-is and try to use it on today's networks.
Because chances are, as many have pointed out, a big problem is congestion and the cell phone companies screwing us, not the device itself.
10 Years ago, my phone only had it's antenna half the time as it was frequently getting broken in my pocket. Without one it was really insensitive!
The camera, the screen, the case materials, siri ... seems like everything except the telephone functions is what's people seem more concerned with, nowadays. So, if it isn't as much of a marketing advantage, why would mfrs pay as much attention to phone quality, when they could spend money and hype the features that sell the phones?
This is no surprise to those of us who have spent time in the networking industry. The root cause of this problem is that the core cellular technology has been completely de-valued in the eyes of customers.
If you look at the high tech industry from an economic POV, it is obvious that the benefits of all the investment at every layer of the protocol stack is accruing to the internet companies like Google, Amazon & Facebook. It takes years of planning, tremendous knowhow and massive investment to create a cellular standard, and creating wireless equipment is still extremely complex. You need to hire engineers with training in electrical engineering and communication theory. But since the end customer places no value to the technology (how much extra would you pay for a phone to use a cellular implementation that does not drop calls?), the companies that build such equipment have collapsed.
10 years ago, 3 of the top 5 telecomm companies in the world were based out of North America (Lucent, Nortel, Motorola). All these companies have been devastated, their carcasses consumed by European companies that themselves went under. So the telecomm arms of Alcatel, Lucent, Nokia & Siemens, Motorola are now (or will shortly be) one combined entity. Ericsson and Huawei, who enjoy extensive support from their respective governments, are #1 and #2 in the world. Ericcson equipment is still nominally decent, but Huawei's is absolutely terrible and 1/10th the price. But guess what... nobody cares.
10 years ago, telecomm equipment was supposed to provide 5 nines reliability. That means that the entire network had to stay up for all but 5 minutes a YEAR, and the downtime had to be scheduled. I have seen senior executives fired summarily due to their organizations failure to do their part to maintain these goals. It is relatively easy to make equipment that can make a few calls and then crash. Much more difficult to make stuff that stays up for years and keeps on ticking. All these experts who knew how to design such systems are mostly unemployed or working for insurance companies.
The demise of the traditional telecomms have been accompanied by the decline in health of core technology companies. Qualcomm, which used to be the Bell Labs of the 90s and 2000s, and who pioneered most of the 3G and 4G technologies that we take for granted these days is struggling and a shadow of its former self. They are facing brutal competition from MediaTek, the Huawei of the communication chip industry. MediaTek is Taiwanese knockoff who has pretty much stolen Qualcomm's IP, refuse to pay royalties and are protected by the Chinese government (a bizarre situation considering China's official political stance on Taiwan). Mediatek's chips are known in the industry to be at least 3 dB worse than Qualcomm's chips, and far less stable. If you have a non-Qualcomm chip in your phone, you are far more likely to experience call drops and overall airlink failures. (Disclaimer: I have never worked for Qualcomm and have no connection with the company, though I do own some Qualcomm stock. I have, however, spent years in the cellular networking industry). There was a time when no phone manufacturer would have even contemplated putting such an inferior chip into even their low end phones. Now, however, Mediatek's chips are available even in high-end products sold in western countries. They pretty much own the third world.
Most folks especially young people do not make voice calls these days. Data is far more tolerant to airlink errors, and web protocols are so overweight and clunky that the efficiencies provided by a more stable implementation are drowned out by the sheer bulk of HTTP. Furthermore, the customer has now been conditioned to experience a poor cellular experience when they use their apps.
The other major factor is the demise of the cellular industry is the ascent of Wifi. Most folks are on Wifi > 60% of their time anyway.
The least important function on my smart phone is the ability to make phone calls.
I still have my first cell phone, and it runs just fine. I was bored one day, decided to unlock it and give it a whirl. It's really depressing how the call quality is far superior than my android. That, and the fact that it has snake that's actually fun to play on a phone.
Who knew?
And cell phones still have crappy voice quality compared to land lines.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
I do pine for my old Nokia. Battery lasts a week, great reception, clearer calls, AND.. I can successfully manage Call Waiting without dropping the other or both callers every single time (...thanks Droid2, Droid3, Droid4, iPhone5s, iPhone6) And I loved the old call management functions.. used to be I could use codes or menu functions to forward calls when I am unavailable, such as when I am in the mountains and intermittently in coverage. I could forward the calls to the landline in the condo. Now, that functionality does not exist whatsoever in the mobile, at least not on Motorola's version of Android.