20 years ago, I’d call someone on the telephone and have a normal conversation – like we were talking in the same room, but we just couldn’t see each other. After 20 years of supposed advances in technology, fiber-optic cables, VoIP, wireless, satellite, and so forth, I call someone and feel like we’re talking on two tin cans tied together with a string.
Two issues in particular drive me absolutely bonkers:
Choppy Conversations
Over landline connections, people can talk over one another – interrupt each other while still hearing what the other person is saying. This is due to the fact that landline connections support full-duplex (2-way) communications. Assuming both parties practice some degree of etiquette, conversations proceed smoothly.
With wireless (cell-phone) communications and VoIP (Voice over IP or phone over Internet), conversations often feel choppy, words get lost, statements need to be repeated. To establish any sense of a normal conversation, one party must stop talking before the other can start. It’s like carrying on a conversation using walkie-talkies:
“Hi, this is Joe, over.”
“Joe, good to hear from you, over.”
“Are you doing anything this weekend? Over.”
“No, why? Over.”
Arggghhhh!
Cell phones and VoIP are supposed to be full-duplex, but they often seem more like half-duplex – you can listen or talk but you can’t do both at the same time.
Echoes
The other day, an old college buddy called me. Every time I said something, I could hear a faint echo of myself. It was like another phone was in the room picking up my voice in the background and playing it back through the receiver. I had to make sure I didn’t have speaker phone turned on by mistake. I ran around the house making sure the other phones were turned off. I tried swapping phones. I even tried hanging up and calling him back. Nothing worked!
Now I’m a big fan of technology. I couldn’t function without my computer. I love my DVR. YouTube is incredibly cool. But I believe that technology should improve quality, not degrade it. So, please, until the telecommunications industry works out all the bugs in wireless and VoIP, if you want to talk to me, have your landline call my landline. If you don’t have access to a landline, look for a pay phone. Remember those?
