iPhone 4G: Dropped Calls? Its Not Your Phone

How often can you hear unwanted noise louder than the person’s voice on a call? How often when you are sharing an important piece on a call, the call drops? How often do you shout because of the poor voice quality to make yourself audible? Frequently! Then let me aware you that all these problems creep in because of the bad 3G wireless networks. Lets get it detailed.

How can a 3G create problems?

“The larger the footprint from a given site (achieved by increasing the transmit power or the height of the antennas), the more interference this site will cause to an adjacent site,” says Paul Carter, president of wireless research company Global Wireless Solutions. Cell signals can also be impeded by topography such as buildings, trees, and hills within the cell zone servicing either party on a call.

But what’s the solution?

4G networks ofcourse!  4G networks like WiMax or LTE use superior MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) antenna technologies that help ease some of these issues. MIMO won’t get better the sound quality of voice calls by itself, but using numerous antennas improves signal quality and ensures a more consistent and reliable connection. More important, 4G technology can connect far more calls and data connections than 3G can, using the same amount of wireless range. So the accessible bandwidth pipeline in 4G networks is considerably larger for individual users and devices. Which means better voice quality-no dropped calls-no shouting.

One Service per Network?

4G networks should perk up voice quality to some amount even if the carrier puts most of its network resources behind data service. For example, if the high bandwidth demands of broadband data are allocated to the rising 4G network, the 3G network is freed up to support voice. The increased capacity will lead to clearer, more stable voice calls that don’t have to compete with data service for bandwidth.

“We expect that, initially, our 4G LTE network will be used primarily for data, with the majority of voice traffic going over our 3G network,” says AT&T spokesperson Jenny Bridges. This will be a welcome development for AT&T, which scored worst among all major carriers in a recent study of cellular voice quality. Even Verizon currently uses a similar approach with its 2G and 3G networks. A Verizon spokesperson explains that Verizon manages voice on a 2G network and data service on a 3G network, so that it can optimize each service independently.

Will it help HD Voice to come in?

The higher bandwidth and network capacity of 4G networks may also increase adoption of HD voice. HD voice calls sound as if the two parties on the call were sitting in a room next to each other having a conversation, rather than battling to talk over each other and missing half of the conversation due to overlap and latency. The increase in clarity and the decrease in line noise and call drops has led Skype users to talk almost 50 percent longer than callers using traditional voice networks, according to Skype CTO Jonathan Rosenberg.

Tags: 3g network, 4g technology, bandwidth demands, cell signals, global wireless, high bandwidth, lte, signal quality, wimax