topic Re: Call quality in Get Support

Call quality

gmd — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 08:58:57 GMT

I have recently noticed that the call quality isn't as good as it used to be. It does seem to be specific to a provider, as if affects calls with everything from normal line to VoIP lines to cellphone lines; but not all.

This has been noticed with a OnePlus 3.

Time to test and compare with a second SIM from another provider in SIM2...

Re: Call quality

mtfolks — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 18:20:54 GMT

I haven’t noticed any issues here on an iPhone SE. But I generally don’t do a lot of voice calling.

Re: Call quality

koimr1 — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 18:33:28 GMT

@gmdwrote:
I have recently noticed that the call quality isn't as good as it used to be. It does seem to be specific to a provider, as if affects calls with everything from normal line to VoIP lines to cellphone lines; but not all.

This has been noticed with a OnePlus 3.

Time to test and compare with a second SIM from another provider in SIM2...

Can you clarify "affects calls with everything from normal line to VoIP lines to cellphone lines"? I'm reading this as your recipients who are using these methods while you are using straight-up mobile/cell calling.

What is it that is lacking? Robot voice, static, voices dropping out, calls dropping entirely?

Give the second SIM thing a try and if that yields the same results.

Re: Call quality

Luddite — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 21:26:16 GMT

Lots of calling on my line; no issues around Ontario or to BC.

Re: Call quality

Michael77 — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 22:59:47 GMT

I never had any issues with PM's call quality. It was always good.

Re: Call quality

zhadj030 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 23:08:03 GMT

I have noticed the same. Tried with a new LG V20, Samsung S5 as well as iphone 5S.

Making local calls in Ottawa or even receiving phone calls, the quality is really bad despite being in a full coverage area 7 am in the morning of a saturday .

Had 2 phones calls that went straight to my voicemail (just one - two bars on WCDMA) in the period of the last month at home.

No dropped calls but the voice quality and clarity has dropped a lot, it is like hearing someone trying to speak through a mask and some cuts with the voice.

Kind of glad someone else is experiencing the problem

Edit: Seemd like a temporary issue, that lasted 4 days in my case. All calls are back to normal quality now. For my case calls were made to 1-800 numbers as well as people on the Koodo numbers so voip included. I am glad that it was just a temporary issue.

Re: Call quality

MoraMan — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:11:33 GMT

Recent convert to PM and no issues. Knock on wood....

Re: Call quality

will13am — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 05:04:02 GMT

I have been with this service for over a year, multiple accounts and more models of phones than I care to list. Long story short, call quality is fine.

Re: Call quality

smp99 — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:39:41 GMT

7 family members all living in the Muskoka, rural and typically for many locations, only access to a single tower for a given time. Calls quality is fine.

Re: Call quality

gmd — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 20:25:36 GMT

@koimr1, it affects calls to and from landlines, other cellphones, voip lines. I'm in Ottawa.

Talking to my wife the other day, I couldn't tell she was driving: the sound was muffled and there was no background noise (when usually, those are noisy). Switched to a Moto Z on Telus and it was night and day.

Re: Call quality

koimr1 — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 20:41:37 GMT

@gmdwrote:
@koimr1, it affects calls to and from landlines, other cellphones, voip lines. I'm in Ottawa.

Talking to my wife the other day, I couldn't tell she was driving: the sound was muffled and there was no background noise (when usually, those are noisy). Switched to a Moto Z on Telus and it was night and day.

Thanks for responding! 🙂

PM and Telus use the exact same network so my first thought now is the phone. Try putting your PM SIM into the Moto Z and retry. Also try the Telus SIM in your OnePlus 3.

To be clear it might not actually be your phone - I just want to try and eliminate as many variables as possible.

Re: Call quality

Korth — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 22:56:32 GMT

VoIP call quality is often poor, regardless of call quality on the other end.

It's best to "troubleshoot" or "experiment" a little - confirm which phones have better or worse call quality than others, identify which conditions reproduce the problem.

Fringe cellular service (with weak signal and weak device battery) can produce the voice artifacts described above, but I think the far more prevalent cause is consistently going to be the VoIP side of the connection.

Re: Call quality

sheytoon — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 15:49:56 GMT

wrote:
VoIP call quality is often poor, regardless of call quality on the other end.
...
I think the far more prevalent cause is consistently going to be the VoIP side of the connection.

I disagree with this. There's a huge spectrum of quality with VoIP. I've had consistently excellent quality on VoLTE (which is one implementation of VoIP), as well as voip.ms.

Re: Call quality

Korth — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 17:26:55 GMT

@sheytoon ... agreed, VoIP can be wildly hit or miss. And it's probably not as bad as I suggested above. And it's quite popular, so it must have something going for it.

My experiences with VoIP were extensive but also based on the Dark Ages when AOL CDs were still a thing. Everybody tried VoIP - though rarely for long, lol - it was hard to resist when VoIP cost ~$4/month, phone landlines (remember landlines?) cost ~$40/month, and cellular "dumbphones" were a severely limited, very costly luxury.

Mobile electronics, digital processing, and the internet (which VoIP is built on) have all advanced considerably since then, as have many related non-technological aspects. So it's obvious that today's VoIP (and VoLTE, etc) must be superior to yesterday's VoIP.

That being said, I still think that - just based on the way it works - packet-based VoIP is inherently less capable of sustaining realtime voice quality as multiplex-based cellular (GSM/etc). I've heard all of the sorts of voice artifacts described above, often on (ancient) VoIP but rarely on (modern) cellular - and then only when signal is very weak, I'm in the fringe or a basement or tunnel or something, and battery charge is approaching flatline, whether it be on my end or on the other.

There's no substitute for making your own comparisons. Identifying which device(s) and which condition(s) produce these poor voice connections so that they can be avoided or corrected when reliable clean communication has priority.

Re: Call quality

crazycolby — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 13:32:23 GMT

last week was not ok, but right now is good, Iphone6

Re: Call quality

Michael77 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 15:03:13 GMT

I had no issues with the call quality when I was with PM. I am now with Rogers and call quality is good too. It has been a seemless change.

Re: Call quality

gmd — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 20:02:22 GMT

Two questions :

1. Why is VOIP voice call quality taking over this thread?

2. Why are people giving thumbs up to a side discussion?

Thanks to all those who have given their two cents on the PM call quality. When I get a chance, I will do some more tests with two SIMs in the OnePlus 3, as this does not happen all the time.

For the record, I have been with PM for two years and have 3 lines (another phone just spent over a day with incoming calls going straight to voicemain and no incoming SMS messages - more testing to come!).

Re: Call quality

Luddite — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 21:38:13 GMT

@gmd

1. Folks pitch in as they wish. Your initial post mentioned voip, so some that it was a viable point of discussion?

2. Because "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and your issue is not able to be resolved succinctly.

The results of your testing will likely provide the correct answer. Good luck.

Re: Call quality

sheytoon — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 21:44:57 GMT

@gmdwrote:
It does seem to be specific to a provider

What do you mean by this? Which provider?

I haven't had any voice call issues.

Re: Call quality

Korth — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 23:07:50 GMT

Well then, back on topic ...

Phones always proudly advertise their most impressive specs - how pretty the screen is, how fast they run stuff, how awesome their OS version is, how many useful apps and cool features they include, etc. Along with whatever cellular network technologies/protocols (and performances) they're compatible with. But they rarely mention boring details like what sort of actual voice/talk call quality they provide. And it can vary.

Even the very best-of-the-best top-tier top-price "elite" or "premium" smartphones sometimes use cheap microphones, cheap speakers, or cheap embedded hardware (usually one function on a multi-purpose SoC subprocessor) for the inglorious job of real-time sampling/amplifying/filtering/compressing/encoding/decoding lowly voice audio. Some devices advertise "Wideband Audio" or "HD Voice" capabilities which promise to consistently meet better quality standards, but even these still frequently fall back onto lesser voice compression standards. There's often no real way to tell what's inside and how well it works without actually doing a takeapart or simply using the device firsthand. Especially since it's further complicated (bottlenecked) by voice-traffic volume or signal handovers across the cellular network itself, voice bandwidth can vary from over 12.2kbps to less than 4.75kbps, which directly impacts call quality and can translate into rougher audio resolution with more noise, distortion, and digital artifacts.

Looking it up, OnePlus 3 specs don't reveal this technical detail but the device has received generally positive reviews with reviewers (like this one) describing the voice quality as "above average", "good but not great", and "better than most smartphones in this price range".