Posted on 03/23/2011 7:13:55 PM PDT by decimon
What we have here is a failure to cease communicating.
Solution: Shorten battery life and lengthen recharge time.
They started it.
Hope this doesn’t ruin it for those of us that just want to make a phone call on our phones.
Huh? What an ignorant article. Those networks "designed for low-bandwidth voice calls?" First of all, voice is NOT bandwidth, and won't be for a while, as Verizon tested their first Voice over LTE call (VoLTE) just last month! Second of all, these networks have been continuously upgraded and deprecated over the last decade! Let's go over just Verizon's network progression since their inception a decade ago (and before that):
One possible fix. “The tiny cube that could cut your cell phone bill”
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/21/technology/light_radio/index.htm
Technology to the rescue. I hope that works.
Money-for-nothing alert.
Which service do you have?
I think you’re confusing “bandwidth” with “broadband”. Voice calls are considered low-bandwidth, since they are very “bursty”, with comparatively long periods of silence between bursts. Broadband, as may be inferred from the “broad”, uses a lot of bandwidth.
Att. Suspect that, now that verizon carries iPhone, the load on the system might lighten up a bit; or at least not crowd much more.
From what I’ve read, ATT works well in some areas but really stinks in others.
Nope, from my best understanding (and I could be wrong), voice calls do not get transmitted as "data," which we would commonly apply the term bandwidth to, but as voice on a separate faction of the carriers' networks, using different cell site equipment. For example, this means on Verizon Wireless' network, it's carried over their CDMA network. Data, on the other hand, is carried over their EVDO network (EVolution-Data Only) which is entirely separate and unaffected by voice calls.
Likewise, SMS (text messages) are carried over special channels of those networks. That's why if you're at a big event with a lot of people, such as a sporting event, your calls and data may not go through - but your text messages might (there are other reasons, such as auto-retrying, but that's another point).
That's why I mentioned Voice over LTE (VoLTE), a future technology much like Voice over IP (VoIP) to carry voice conversations over the currently data-only LTE network. Then, the carriers could shutter their legacy 2G and 3G networks and rely solely on their LTE networks (except you, Sprint).
what we also have is a generation of teens and young adults who communicate almost exclusively thru their smart phones using ‘social media.’ Much of it is just a huge waste of bandwidth.
The term “bandwidth” just refers to the size of the “pipe” available for transmitting signals. And it’s been a while since voice calls were transmitted as analog signals. They use digital systems for everything but the “last mile” of the network. Everything goes over the same network links, though various signals are separated out logically through different headers attached to the data packets. Here’s an explanation of voice calls from Wikipedia:
As described above, most automated telephone exchanges now use digital switching rather than mechanical or analog switching. The trunks connecting the exchanges are also digital, called circuits or channels. However analog two-wire circuits are still used to connect the last mile from the exchange to the telephone in the home (also called the local loop). To carry a typical phone call from a calling party to a called party, the analog audio signal is digitized at an 8 kHz sample rate using 8-bit pulse code modulation (PCM). The call is then transmitted from one end to another via telephone exchanges. The call is switched using a call set up protocol (usually ISUP) between the telephone exchanges under an overall routing strategy.
The call is carried over the PSTN using a 64 kbit/s channel, originally designed by Bell Labs. The name given to this channel is Digital Signal 0 (DS0). The DS0 circuit is the basic granularity of circuit switching in a telephone exchange. A DS0 is also known as a timeslot because DS0s are aggregated in time-division multiplexing (TDM) equipment to form higher capacity communication links.
A Digital Signal 1 (DS1) circuit carries 24 DS0s on a North American or Japanese T-carrier (T1) line, or 32 DS0s (30 for calls plus two for framing and signaling) on an E-carrier (E1) line used in most other countries. In modern networks, the multiplexing function is moved as close to the end user as possible, usually into cabinets at the roadside in residential areas, or into large business premises.
These aggregated circuits are conveyed from the initial multiplexer to the exchange over a set of equipment collectively known as the access network. The access network and inter-exchange transport use synchronous optical transmission, for example, SONET and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) technologies, although some parts still use the older PDH technology.
Within the access network, there are a number of reference points defined. Most of these are of interest mainly to ISDN but one – the V reference point – is of more general interest. This is the reference point between a primary multiplexer and an exchange. The protocols at this reference point were standardized in ETSI areas as the V5 interface.
How can it? A voice call uses very little bandwidth. That's never going to be an issue.
Yes voice calls use bandwidth, even when they aren’t digital. There are limits to simultaneous analogue signals over a common frequency/cable, and that was called bandwidth long before there was even a digital world. Hell, even the name refers to the disparity between the upper and lower width of band (set of frequencies with no gaps) which was the original limit of simultaneous reception and transmission.
It’s been way too long. That should read upper and lower limits of a band. At least that’s semi-coherent.
True, however, the difference between streaming an HD video and reading FR shouldn’t affect voice calls any differently... Both are a separate connection, and while simultaneous uses of the spectrum are a concern, the two networks themselves are functionally separate.
Even today’s voice communications are transmitted on a separate “pipe” than data, as VZW’s voice is over its 1xRTT network, and most data is over its EvDO Rev A or LTE networks. Yes, spectrum is a concern, but how much when they are functionally separate? As you said, 1xRTT is digital, not analog, but they still aren’t IP packets on even the same network from what I understand.
This article makes it sound like “the tubes are clogged,” which is ridiculous (unless you are on at&t).
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