What to Do If the Quality of Voice Calls on Your Smartphone Sucks
There are many ways to keep in touch with friends and family using your smartphone, but the classic phone call is still the method of choice for many. Unfortunately, call quality has n’t kept pace with the digital revolution, leading to confusing conversations – sometimes even on high-end smartphones.
If you are struggling with crappy phone calls, there are a few different things you can do to fix them. Here’s what you need to know (courtesy of an exhaustive detailing from PCMag ).
Make sure HD Voice is on
Call coding may affect how it sounds. For the highest quality calls, you should be sure to use “HD Voice”, a popular feature that has been available on most devices for many years.
On Android devices, you can easily tell if HD Voice is activated every time you call. Just look for the words “HD Dialing” in the upper right corner. If you don’t see it, go to your device’s settings and look for an option called “Advanced Calling” (the exact name may vary depending on your phone and carrier). Then follow the instructions to turn on HD Voice.
If you have an iPhone, you can turn on HD Voice by going to Settings> Cellular> Cellular Options> Turn LTE On. Select Voice & Data if it’s not already on.
Make sure both phones are compatible
HD Voice is a good start, but if the phone you’re calling isn’t compatible with yours, HD Voice won’t help much. This can happen for two main reasons: either you are using different carriers that rely on competing standards, or one of the phones is missing some important technology.
US carriers are in one of two camps: AT&T and T-Mobile rely on GSM , while Verizon and Sprint rely on CDMA. Each group also uses a different format for transferring audio call data. Therefore, attempting to call an AT&T phone from your Verizon device may result in audio distortion.
For an example of what this sounds like, PCMag recorded audio files of all types of phone calls between different carriers (both with and without HD Voice). You can find them all in the main article by scrolling down the page to the “How It All Sounds” section.
As you can hear, the call quality between two phones on the same network (or compatible networks) is usually better. Of course, this isn’t always an option, and you can’t get your friends to switch carriers for you.
An alternative is to use a smartphone with enhanced voice services (EVS), which generate a better signal over the networks. Verizon and T-Mobile currently support EVS, and it comes with several high-end devices from the likes of Samsung, LG, Apple, and Google.
Several carriers are also working to improve the quality of interconnected calls in 2018. T-Mobile and Sprint have plans to improve interoperability between carriers by the end of the year. On the other hand, these companies continue to focus more on compelling improvements such as faster data rates and service expansion. So don’t get too carried away with improving call quality just yet.
Just use data instead
If you don’t feel like waiting for your carrier to get down to business, you can ditch your phone app entirely and try something else. Services like Apple FaceTime, Google Duo, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram offer phone calls over the Internet and Wi-Fi – provided your connection isn’t blocked by your roommates or family.
Many of these apps offer high-quality audio that rivals HD Voice, making them a great option for carrier-to-carrier calls. For example, FaceTime uses the same audio coding algorithm that Apple offers for downloaded iTunes tracks, which means calls between carriers should sound much better. You will get clear call quality and many other benefits (such as video calls) without any of the hassles associated with legacy carrier networks.