Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: gt94sss2 on January 05, 2019, 09:37:37 AM
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The amount of time Britons spend making landline phone calls has halved in the last six years, as the mobile revolution makes the more traditional method of communication increasingly obsolete.
Research from the telecoms regulator Ofcom charts the rapid decline in the popularity of using fixed-line telephones to make calls, with the number of minutes plummeting from 103bn in 2012 to 54bn in 2017.
Over the same period the amount of time Britons have spent using mobile phones to make calls has grown from 132bn minutes to 148bn minutes
More at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/05/britons-hang-up-landline-call-volumes-halve
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I don't use the land line at all to make calls. The only time I use it is if someone is calling me, like the hospitals or government departments.
I remember about 10 years ago talking to a friend in Finland and she said hardly anyone uses their land line for talking. They only had it for broadband. All their communications was done via mobile.
I don't think the old phone system can compete. Things that are extras on a standard phone line are standard on a mobile phone, like caller display. Also its a lot easier to deploy mobile technology than setting up a new phone line for someone.
I think the old phone boxes went out of fashion faster than they should because BT put the price up very high to the point people complained and they had to reduce it again. But the damage was done. If they had kept it at 10p or 50p per minute they might have been up longer.
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I can never get used to the latency when using a mobile, and so tend to use a landline whenever possible. I vaguely remember a work training course, where it was explained that the latency went largely unnoticed by some, but annoyed others. I think it depended more on cultural background than anything else, cultures that habitually leave a long pause in conversation will fare better than those that habitually engage “rapid response” in conversation.
To get an idea of the latency, and just how real it is, try the following experiment...
1. Pick up your mobile, and call your own landline number, and answer the incoming call.
2. Now put your *mobile to your ear and, speaking into the landline phone, count briskly from one to ten.
Chances are that the number you hear will up to be one digit behind the number you speak. If the effect does not bother you then congratulations, your brain can adapt to the latency. It bothers me intensely, however, to the point I find it hard to keep counting. :(
*oddly enough when I just tried experiment that and it only worked as described. With landline to my ear, speaking into the iPhone, I heard nothing at all. I guess the feedback and echo cancellation algorithms have got too good. Maybe the experiment might not work at all with more modern phones?
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Then repeat the same experiment between 2 mobile phones.
Any latency you're talking about must a past thing that's been fixed or something that only happens between mobiles and landlines.
I just called my son's mobile from my mobile and I can hear it 100% live.
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I might be tempted to use my mobile at home if one of the networks deigned to provide a halfway decent signal.
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I might be tempted to use my mobile at home if one of the networks deigned to provide a halfway decent signal.
Ditto!
:)
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Pretty much impossible to fix completely, the latency is a necessity owing to packetisation of the voice signal. You can’t sent a packet until you’ve collected enough data. In an IP based network there is further latency as the packets may arrive out of sequence, meaning the receiver may need to buffer things waiting for out of sequence arrivals.
I find latency very noticeable in VoIP, regardless of landline or mobile. An example is the typical scam antivirus phone calls, where the distant call centre is likely very low cost VoIP. It is true that even in core network, voice traffic these days may be sent over IP, and suffer similar latency issues, but for normal domestic calls I have only ever found my own personal ‘bounds of acceptability’ to be crossed when using mobiles.
I have just tried my own experiment between two iPhones, and found the effect to be even worse, but perception does differ between individuals, and maybe - not sure - it also differs according to network congestion levels?
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Pretty much all large and medium sized enterprises use VoIP, alongside everyone taking broadband and voice via MPF LLU.
Everyone on VM likewise, those using it via their cable modems the IP is end to end. The vast majority of landlines in North America and all those landlines worldwide using using cable are likewise. VM UK are the only one not using VoIP end to end for all.
Packetisation isn't a problem.
Congestion on networks carrying calls should not be a problem. Calls are prioritised for access to bandwidth at the very least and most of the time have capacity nailed up. Buffers should be variable and have a maximum size of no more than 50ms for optimal experience. Jitter in double figures is bad, let alone 50ms.
The delay on mobile networks is usually between handset and fibre and most of the time shouldn't be a problem even for the sensitive. Delays for international calls are far more of an issue :)
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Whatever.
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No issues here with indoor signal.
To me landline is completely obsolete, the only reason I have one is for broadband. I give out the number to places like my GP, but its not a requirement.
My mobile service has survived through powercuts, landline outages and I consider it extremely reliable.
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Whatever.
Sorry for bringing evidence to bear against your evidently sacrosanct opinions again.
I did miss a bit out. I can't speak for other places but in the USA the two big telcos at least, Verizon and AT&T, are progressively retiring copper, moving all customers onto VoIP. The only reason Openreach haven't started doing this already is Ofcom's fixation with LLU: other telcos in Europe have it in progress already and it seems to be okay.
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Sorry for bringing evidence to bear against...
If @7lm notices unbearable lag with mobile phones, that is an observed effect, not an opinion. However, the conclusion that VOIP is the cause might not be correct. Maybe it is, as he surmises, due to the algorithms that mobile phones use to overcome the problems inherent in the placement of microphone and speaker.
The good news is that the human brain is capable of learning to cope with new situations, and ignoring external 'noise'. If/when 7lm has no option but to use VOIP, he will at least (eventually) get used to it, even if he doesn't enjoy it.
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It was actually the rest I was remaking on.
Packetisation not being the cause, VoIP being used for most landlines in various countries and certainly many in the UK, and the increased latency on mobile networks being between fibre and handset.
The man is talking over VoIP when he calls a major business, if he uses TT, Vodafone (I think) or Sky himself, if he calls someone on Virgin Media, etc.
Network congestion should prevent calls being made if resources aren't available. In the case of DOCSIS a new service flow is created with guaranteed bandwidth, in the case of professional VoIP the voice VLAN gets priority on the local network and is marked to ensure expedited delivery over the WAN. There's even RSVP, where network signalling sets up an uncontended virtual circuit across an MPLS forwarding plane and if capacity isn't there request denied.
Unbearable lag on mobiles is nothing to do with echo cancellation. Those algorithms have to be run via more dedicated hardware, the Android OS can't handle real time processing well: tried one of those apps that claims to provide noise cancellation? ;)
Bit of a delay from the transcoding mind, and the latency can be quite variable between handset and fibre, but fixed line VoIP, whether IP right from home or IP from an MSAN, done anything like properly is indistinguishable from POTS. :)
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...fixed line VoIP...done anything like properly is indistinguishable from POTS.
Thanks for the clarification. :)
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I did away with our landline in April when we moved to Virgin and don't miss it. We never used it anyway, and only received the odd call. We all have mobiles, the wife's and mine together costs £16.50 a month, we each have enough inclusive minutes/texts/data for our needs. Our two daughters are on PAYG and £10 each lasts them months. . I deliberately keep mine and the wife's on different networks for obvious reasons but have never had a problem at home. I've never noticed lag on a mobile call that I can remember, we have Voip at work and call quality is excellent after we changed from PN.
There are issues with Voip that annoy me, such as no ring back, if I dial out with the soft phone on the PC I get our on hold music on the hand set until the call is answered, which is frankly ridiculous (3CX and a Yealink dect phone).
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@CarlIT, maybe we are not in so much disagreement as I thought. A few clarifications...
I never suggested that echo cancellation added to delay, I only mentioned it as an oddity that When speaking into an iPhone I heard nothing (silence) on the landline, in same room.
I already said that core network includes IP, but rarely find that the packetisation delay (which must exist) to be noticeable or annoying. Packetisation also requires a further delay, reassembling received IP packets that may be out of sequence. I think that is what you called the jitter buffer which again must cause a further delay, however short, it cannot be ‘none’.
In contrast, I called my bank yesterday at a UK call centre. In this case, as was very common with such call centres, there was noticeable tendency for the two parties to keep interrupting one another, which is a common consequence of poor quality packetisation delay. I would speculate that the call centre was implemented using VoIP over a less than PSTN quality network.
I also explained (or tried to) that whilst I do not like the delays inherent to VoIP I am prepared to live with them at PSTN level ( ie if implemented well). The delay exhibited by mobiles, which will include packetisation with possibly more compromised quality, is what I find quite intrusive. There may be other factors at play with mobile that add further to the delay but regardless, I nearly always find the mobile delay to be highly intrusive, and prefer to use a landline, even if it entails VoIP somewhere in the mix.
As an aside, people may have noticed a specific thing that no longer works, on packrtised services, it is the conversation along lines of....
“Thanks for calling, Goodbye”
“Yes, Bye.”
Then a split second later, one party remembers something ele
“Hang on, one more thing, are you still there?”
“” silence, as although still holding the handset, the other party does not respond, and hangs up. Whereas in days of analogue, I swear the “Hang on” would be heard....
...It would take physchological studies to confirm, but I have a theory that the delay is somehow enough for the remote party’s brain to command the ear to stop listening, whereas with POTS you could beat that brain command. Just a daft theory. :D
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You should do some of these if they come up - algorithms at getting there but subjective experience is still king for small scale, much as it is with video resolutions, frame rates, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_opinion_score
Excuse me by the way. As part of my job I have to be far more familiar with this stuff than anyone would wish to be. My own subjective experience can't be measured as I simply don't use POTS. VoIP from AAISP for landline, mobile or Skype for Business / WebEx for everything work related, Skype / WhatsApp / Google Hangout / Facebook Messenger for the rest.
Very much a millennial in a 40-something's body just without the aversion to voice conversations, even if they aren't my default anymore.
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Given the choice, I always use a landline in preference to mobile.
Even without visual signals or body language, there's an 'immediacy' on landline that just isn't there with even the best (and it's frequently awful) quality of a mobile call.