I recently switched over to a cell phone full time, and I’ve noticed that the phone seems to be incapable of an actual two-way signal like an analog phone. That is, when one person talks, the other person - or any sound coming from their side - is silenced. I find that this has a subtle but irritating and unnatural effect on conversations, as part of natural conversation is certain words and exchanges slightly overlapping.
For example, I recently realized that if my friend is in the car with the radio on or somewhere with a lot of background noise, my conversation sounds clipped and gated to him as my words only “break into” the shared audio space as I speak. Weird!
Do all cell phones actually work this way? Is this behavior actually covered and explained in some legalese or technical writing? I’m wondering if there’s actually some sort of fraud or false advertising going on when these things are called “phones” rather than “walky talkies” or some other term.
I have owned three phones - a Motorola V710, an LG something, and an iPhone, and none of them behave like this. It must be something particular to your setup - what kind of phone do you have?
EDIT: Make that four - the fourth one didn’t do this either.
My work phones act like this quite often. Maybe all the time, but I notice it quite often. Sprint and Nextel service, Sanyo (on the third model, now) and Motorola phones.
When using the speakerphone, I understand the squelching circuit – all of the desk phones I’ve ever used do the same thing in speaker mode, too. But when two people try to talk at the same time in “normal” mode, it’s not natural; it’s broken up, and I’m accustomed to hearing or saying “go ahead” quite often.
On my Cingular account with a Sony-Erricson phone (and it’s ancient), it’s just like using a normal land-line.
I think that the CDMA system uses a form of voice compression that is wonky sometimes, especially in regards to silences… try calling your landline from a CDMA phone, and make sure that there is no background noise. If you listen on the house phone, it sounds as if the connection has been cut completely.
I recall reading somewhere that the very first telephones in the late 1800s did send the signal in both directions at the same time, BUT each person’s earpiece gave only the other person’s voice. The engineers found that this caused people to speak more loudly than necessary, and that this could be solved with a little feedback, so that each earpiece contained BOTH voices.
It seems clear to me that our cell phones do NOT contain the speaker’s voice (only that of the other party) and that this may well be (at least part of) why people speak so loudly on cell phones. It might also explain the OP, if the lack of feedback causes an illusion that the sound is one-way.
I believe they work this way by design. I remember a talk describing cell phone usage. The point of the talk was that people always talk louder on a cell phone than a regular phone. Turns out this is to be expected. The early landline phones were one-way as well. The phone companies eventually found out they had to add the return (to make it truly two way) because that is the way peopel judge how loud they are. If you have something stuck in your ear you can’t hear yourself talk very well-so you raise your voice. Cell phones are band-width limited and so the phone companies don’t want to tie up essentially a second call just so you can hear yourself talk. So far they have gotten away with it, but eventually I suspect “high-quality” phones will offer feedback. But I don’t think any do right now.
BTW, the sound of your own voice in the earpiece of a phone is called “sidetone.”
On a landline, the device which separates out your voice from the incoming signal is a 4-wire to 2-wire converter or “hybrid.”
To me, cellphone voice quality is abominable. I suffer from exactly what the OP does. Forget the dropouts and problems caused by inadequate signal strength; even if both parties are near towers, they still suffer from delays, annoying rainbarrel echoes, half-duplex (only one party can talk at a time) and the gated audio where any signal less than a minimum level is not transmitted at all. This latter “feature” cuts off beginnings and ends of words to save transmission bandwidth. Then add a really cheap mic & headset as in most phones, and if you use it hands-free, the problems are multiplied.
I can remember when Sprint advertised “crystal clear sound, so clear you can hear a pin drop” with landlines. We are going backwards in sound quality and I find communication over cells difficult and try to avoid it at all costs.
I have not experienced what the OP is describing. Cell phones are designed to be full duplex–they transmit in both directions at the same time. Perhaps on some networks or in some areas it does not work as designed.
A problem that I do experience frequently is “stepped on” conversation when you both try to talk at the same time, then you both say “go ahead,” then you both say “go ahead” again, until someone gives up. This is caused by the transmission delay screwing up the rhythm of your conversation. But I don’t think that is the same thing that the OP is experiencing, since you have to be able to hear both voices for this situation to occur.
My only experience is with Verizon and AT&T/Cingular - sounds like maybe this is a Sprint/Nextel thing?
As an interesting sidenote, on cell phones, your voice is not transmitted using ordinary audio compression, like MP3 or something. The phone actually matches your voice characteristics against a model of the human vocal tract, and then sends just those model parameters across the network, where your voice is re-synthesized from them on the other end.
I thought that was the coolest thing ever when I took a signal processing class last year.
While cell phones typically get upgraded every few years people forget that the backbone and tower relay sites hardware behind them is often 10-15+ years old, and may not be able to provide optimum processing power for a high call load volume and may introduce delays that make the conversation seem like a non-duplex call even though cell phones are designed to be full duplex.
Nope. I was with Sprint for 3 years before switching last year; I never encountered any half-duplex problems like the one the OP describes on any of the 3 phones I had with them.
No you don’t. The problem is caused by not being able to hear both at once, in real time, with no delay, the way a typical landline conversation works.
Ever watch a foreign correspondent in a far-off land talking to the talking head at the local network office? Ever notice how the correspondent always lags behind and seems to not hear the question right away? Same thing – a short delay exists.
this “stepped-on” conversation is what happens to me. I can’t seem to break the habit of speaking while others are speaking (in casual friend-to-friend conversations.) I get a little frustrated at myself.