Re:Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
by toomuchtodo on Sunday February 16, 2014 @02:20PM
(#7248799)
Don't cellular providers now support wideband audio calls with certain handsets? For example, the Nexus 5 and iPhone 5(c|s) on T-mobile. How does wideband audio compare to a land line?
Re:Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
by thrownaway2424 on Sunday February 16, 2014 @02:52PM
(#7248946)
Traditional digital voice telephony is astonishingly good compared to anything we now use on mobiles. The problem with mobile has never been with the bandwidth, it's the packet loss. You can have as wide a band as you want but if you are dropping half the frames or they arrive at random times then it still sounds like shit. Isochronous circuit switching basically works perfectly, as long as the path can be established (busy signal is the failure mode here).
On VoIP with a good low loss path you can get amazing quality too. Skype for example sounds even better than digital circuit switched telephony.
I agree with your conclusion, but not necessarily your reasoning. By contrast, when I watch an actual DVD, it makes me wonder why we put up with the awful compression artifacts of most streaming video. Instead, I might argue that we need higher bandwidth just to get back to where we were, and then will need even more to get to the point where transmission speed is not the limiting factor.
and unlimited landline phone service
Again, the wonders of modern compression technology. It's amazing that "landline phone" is still considered a step up from VOIP, and yet it is!