The wireless revolution’s forgotten victim: The phone itself

The complaints kept increasing: Whose phone is cracking or buzzing? In teleconference after teleconference, various colleagues and I would waste time trying to figure out whose phone was buzzing, crackling, fading out, and contributing to any number of distractions. “But I’m using a landline” was a common reply when someone was accused of being the problem. I certainly said that many times, yet in some cases I was the culprit.

Although more and more teleconferences are conducted with an option to use WebEx, GoToMeeting, or similar VoIP services, their audio quality leaves something to be desired, and they work poorly on the Mac. Also, dealing with the bulky USB headsets and the audio settings to ensure the audio doesn’t go through the computer’s microphone and speakers in an office environment — not automatically handled in all cases — was too much of a pain for most participants.

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The use of Bluetooth headsets on computers and tablets introduced its own issues, such as weak mic pickup and even buzzing. Finally, most people’s landlines were cordless telephones connected to a landline, with either a wired or Bluetooth lightweight headset attached, so we could be online while talking. They’re all vectors for interference from the ubiquitous Wi-Fi networks we swim in these days.

I had this issue years ago when Wi-Fi networks became popular. I had started with an 800MHz cordless system, but its signal quality was poor, so I switched to a 2.4GHz system. But after a few years, I couldn’t escape interference with the growing number of 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks and radios in my environment. Changing Wi-Fi channels on my router sometimes helped, but that didn’t address the increasing number of neighbors’ routers crowding the spectrum, nor all the Wi-Fi devices that steadily crept in: a couple of computers, a couple of smartphones, and on the other side of the house the TiVo and Blu-ray player, not to mention those of neighbors.

So I switched to a 5.8GHz cordless phone, to get my phone far away from the 2.4GHz spectrum. That worked for a few years, but over the last two years the interference crept in again, and it grew increasingly worse. Why? Most of my wireless devices — as well as my neighbors’ — are running 802.11n on the 5GHz spectrum, which is faster and has greater reach. Unfortunately, that’s too close to my cordless phone’s 5.8GHz spectrum.

Again, I was a source of teleconference problems. I upgraded my network lines to Cat6 from Cat5 to get the additional shielding in Cat6, and that helped a little (it’s not just wireless devices that cause signal interference). But it wasn’t enough.

Over the last few months, my boss had complained repeatedly about the interference, which I was sure was not my fault (“I’m on a landline!”). After asking me to abandon a few teleconferences due to the interference, I had to think maybe I was at least part of the problem. A colleague also quietly told me how the call quality was so much better after I hung up. Damn!

I broke down this week and replaced my cordless phone yet again, this time with a 1.8GHz system using the DECT 6 protocol. That keeps me away from both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi spectrums. My boss said I was crystal-clear during this week’s call, and that head-splitting interference was gone. I may be good for a few years, and I get the bonus of a night-mode setting that shuts off the ringer automatically outside of work hours so that telemarketers and PR people who don’t check callees’ time zones no longer disturb me.

No one really cares about telephones these days. They’re cheap, and phone service is increasingly a feature of your Internet or cable service. It doesn’t appear there’s been any investment in the old phone system for years, nor much in the cordless variety beyond the DECT protocol’s development. (Note that DECT is not interoperable across brands.)

Yet VoIP’s quality isn’t that great; it’s very easy to tell when someone is using a VoIP service rather than a real phone line: The call integrity often breaks down, causing stutters, echoes, and audio artifacts. Interestingly, the digital service from cable and phone providers, which is a form of VoIP, doesn’t have these problems. Instead, it’s those who run their VoIP over the Internet connection who have the quality issues, and yet charge as much as a regular phone provider does. Meanwhile, the VoIP conferencing providers’ quality remains inferior to using a real phone, though better than the VoIP telephone service providers’.

When an industry is dying, it gets no investment, and that’s the case with standard phone lines. Yet the Internet-based alternatives are worse, both in quality and complexity of operation. Cellphones are inconvenient to use as a primary business phone: You need to keep them charged, signal quality is unreliable (I have colleagues whose cellphones don’t work in their home offices, for example), they get hot when used for a while, and many plans cost a fortune to get unlimited minutes, which is no issue with standard phone service.

We’re in a period where the new technology isn’t really ready for prime time, and the old technology is left as is. As more and more devices go wireless — Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and so on — the interference issues will only get worse. Maybe it’s a good thing the younger generations text rather than call. The way things are going, I’m not sure how much longer calling will be a real option for regular communication. That’s too bad, because there’s an immediacy and reality to a phone call that messaging can’t replace. Or maybe that’s just the view of someone who grew up in a different world.

This article, “The wireless revolution’s forgotten victim: The phone itself,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Smart User blog. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.