Muffled phone calls

[ThunderSpook]

Bit of a strange one that I hope someone can help with.

My friend has a Samsung Android phone on the Vodafone network. If she phones me on my iPhone SE (Three network) it sounds muffled. But if I phone straight back it’s perfectly clear.

Apparently when I phone it shows on the Android phone as being an HD voice call, but when she phones me it doesn’t.

As an experiment I got her to phone my work phone (an old Nokia on Voda) and it said it was an HD call.

Any ideas why it wouldn’t do an HD voice call when phoning my iPhone particularly, but when I phone her it’s fine.

[anonymous-user]

ThunderSpook said:

Bit of a strange one that I hope someone can help with.

My friend has a Samsung Android phone on the Vodafone network. If she phones me on my iPhone SE (Three network) it sounds muffled. But if I phone straight back it’s perfectly clear.

Apparently when I phone it shows on the Android phone as being an HD voice call, but when she phones me it doesn’t.

As an experiment I got her to phone my work phone (an old Nokia on Voda) and it said it was an HD call.

Any ideas why it wouldn’t do an HD voice call when phoning my iPhone particularly, but when I phone her it’s fine.

I can’t answer specifically to your issue without knowing more but I can answer generally and give some possible reasons.

HD calling is, generally speaking for the UK, a way to make better quality calls by routing the data as a VoLTE (Voice Over Long Term Evolution) call instead of the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). In other words it makes the call over the data network with much more information carried instead of over the switched network like old phone calls and thus the sound is cropped as it can’t carry as much data.

One issue is that telephone networks aren’t quite as cleanly defined as we may think. 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G are all great for explaining quickly how fast a network is and marketing phones for them but it’s not quite really bound as that. 3G, 4G and 5G all have better, faster versions of the technology which networks often used later on the technology cycle and this vastly improves network operations and brings new technologies with it. One such thing is LTE or long term evolution. A sort of 3/4G and a bit and a good way for networks to claim theirs is fastest.

The issue this brings is that not all of the network will bring you all of the functionality. As such, if you’re in central Manchester your phone will have a choice of, and know about several types of cells from 2G, 3G, 3G LTE and so on. If you live rurally you may only have the choice of 2G.

You could get this issue if one phone operator’s network hands over the call to another network which terminates on a cell which doesn’t have the technology to support VoLTE. The originating network wouldn’t know what type of technology the terminating cell is on, nor does it care but it routes the call as VoLTE anyway as it’s preferable for the operator. The receiving operator then has to sort it out, know what cell their terminating customer is on and route the call appropriately. Is the issue replicated when you’re in different locations?

It could be something as simple as one network not even using the VoLTE technology or more probably one service package restricting it unless you pay extra. This is more more common when network operators allow MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) access to their nets but restrict the high tech bits for their own customers. Giff Gaff use O2 Telefonica’s network for example but they don’t have access to some of the functionality.

There are lots more reasons this could happen and the chances are when you speak to a customer service person for the network they’d not have a clue why, you’d need a network engineer to do that which is unlikely to be forthcoming when you speak to them. Even then the volume of work involved to understand why this happens probably disproportionate.

[ThunderSpook]

Thank you for your detailed answer, makes interesting reading.

I take it from that that there is no simple solution then, other than for us to both be on the same network?

[anonymous-user]

ThunderSpook said:

Thank you for your detailed answer, makes interesting reading.

I take it from that that there is no simple solution then, other than for us to both be on the same network?

You’re welcome. There may be a simple solution but it might take a lot of work to find it. The first thing I’d try is to reset your carrier settings on the phone. It could just be an issue with your phone not playing ball.

[TonyRPH]

If you have a decent data package, why not install an app like Signal, which communicates via the 3G / 4G connection, and has both text messaging and voice calling built in.

Of course the disadvantage is that both ends are required to have this app installed.

My family use this extensively. https://signal.org/en/

[boxst]

Over the years (for me anyway), the quality of mobile phone calls has deteriorated terribly. I don't know whether it's the compression or codec they use.

If I have a data signal (even 3G) then WhatsApp, FaceTime Audio, Telegram etc.. gives a much better call quality.

[Mr E]

boxst said:

Over the years (for me anyway), the quality of mobile phone calls has deteriorated terribly. I don't know whether it's the compression or codec they use.
.

Codec won’t have changed. Your expectations will have (and your ears)