Why Does VoIP Sound So Much Better Than POTS?

To those who have ever used Skype, Yahoo! Messenger voice chat, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak or any other over-the-internet method of peer-to-peer voice communication, you’ve noticed the quality of sound is far superior to land-line and wireless/cell phones.

Why is this?

There are actually a few good reasons.

First, some explanation.

VoIP is Voice over Internet Protocol. This is, generally speaking, the method used for voice comms on the internet. POTS is Plain Old Telephone Service. This is deemed a “voice grade” (meaning low grade) method of voice comms.

The reasons POTS sounds so unbelievably crappy compared to VoIP is for two primary reasons:

The speaker in your phone is terrible.

It doesn’t matter if you spent $10 or $100+ for your phone. The built-in speaker is chintzy and cheap.

The cheapest speakers are in cell phones. All of them are tinny, “raspy” and just outright awful.

The only reason corded and cordless land-line phones sound any better is because the speakers are physically larger, giving them more of a “warm” sound compared to tiny cell phone speakers.

When using VoIP you have far superior speakers (usually headphones) and better microphones. Even if you use a bargain-bin set of headphones from a thrift store, they still sound better than your phone. Sad but true.

The best possible kHz frequency on a POTS phone is usually about 10kHz.

10 kilohertz is the equivalent of a radio with a monophonic speaker tuned to an AM station.

In digital terms, a POTS sound is a 10kHz WAV at 8-bit resolution.

On most POTS phones, you usually only get 8kHz at best. It’s terrible and sounds like you’re speaking thru a thick blanket.

VoIP on the other hand is usually at 22kHz at a minimum 16-bit resolution. This is roughly FM radio quality.

VoIP can also go much higher in quality – even up to compact disc specs which is 16-bit 44.1kHz. It may be monophonic (there’s no reason for stereo with voice) but it sounds crisp and clear.

It should be noted that you only get the better quality sound on VoIP when going peer-to-peer and not VoIP to POTS or vice versa.

“But I have a digital land-line phone service. Shouldn’t the sound be better?”

No. Your phone still has a crappy speaker and the service you use is purposely designed for voice-grade sound quality only.

“But I have a super-duper cell phone. Shouldn’t the sound be better?”

No. It’s still POTS quality.

“Will POTS ever get to VoIP quality?”

Indeterminate, but leaning towards “no”.

Concerning the phone cloud itself, it should have been at a VoIP level of audio quality at the time more people had broadband compared to dial-up internet (roughly 5 to 7 years ago), but POTS to this day still has the same crappy audio as it did in the 1970s. In fact, the audio is worse due to ever-cheapening chintzy speakers in handsets and cell phones.

Concerning the phones themselves, it would be nice if more attention were paid to the physical quality of speaker put into them. Unfortunately there isn’t any company willing to take that step.

There are, however, handsets made by Panasonic with “Voice Enhancer” technology that make the audio better-sounding, but you’ll pay a pretty penny for it. I personally spent almost $100 for a cordless base + 2 handsets over 5 years ago specifically to get a better-made, better-sounding phone. I still have them and they still sound great (given the limitations of POTS).

Got a recommendation or two?

Panasonic is my phone of choice for land-line, but if anyone out there has brands they think are above-average for the sound, feel free to chime in with a comment or two, as I’m sure people would be interested.

When I’m talking about land-line handsets, I mean brands like V-Tech, Uniden, GE, AT&T and the like.

If you have a recommendation for a particular wireless/cell phone brand (i.e. LG, Nokia, etc.) that physically sounds better, mention those too.

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Steve Stone
The company I work for has pushed most of their home office workers from POTS to VOIP with top tier providers.
About 50 percent of the VOIP connections are good, the rest are crap. VOIP via FIOS is the best VOIP I’ve heard. Too many times VOIP is a simplex rather than duplex stream. Both sides can’t talk and hear the other person on the opposite end at the same time, resulting in miscommunications. POTS is a duplex connection. Too many times, especially with LD and international calls, packets are dropped, and combined with English as a second language, the result is an unintelligible connection. POTS is more reliable during storms and power outages. In my state the PSC requires dial tone to be restored within 8 hours of an outage. With VOIP there is no such oversight by state or federal entities. Hands down VOIP is cheaper and provide acceptable service 50 percent of the time… but I would not bet my life on it.

http://www.menga.net Rich Menga
Yes, those are all good valid points. POTS, while sonically crappy does in fact have better reliability overall. It’s just a shame that the sound couldn’t be better.

http://none David M
I have been using Vonage (VOIP) for almost two years. I have had absolutely no problems or service failures….honestly.
It connects to a regular telephone therefore my computer does not need to be on to use it. In fact, in using my phone you would never know its VOIP and not the phone company. The sound quality is just as clear as the phone company and I am not experiencing any problem when two people accidentally talk at the same time. I think its superior to the phone company and its certainly a lot less expensive.
I guess I am not experiencing all the same problems that others are saying they are having with VOIP.
Safia
The calls from landlines are so expensive that customers like me cannot even think of making international/long distances calls.Thanx to this new VoIP technology which is making it possible to call so cheaper that now we can make long distance call with out thinking too much about its cost even from our mobiles.
I have been using http://www.vopium.com from last one year and i am very satisfied with its service.Voice quality is very good and it has helped me reduce my phone bill costs a lot.
Don Nordenholt
Rich,
Sorry but you do not know what you are talking about! Where are you getting your information? I’ve been in the telecom game for 25 years. The bandwidth/frequency response of POTS is less than 4KHz. I forget the precise upper and lower cutoffs and they’re not always the same for all services and technical standards. 300-3400Hz sticks in my mind. 8KHz? You’ve got to be kidding!
And FM sound quality for VoIP? Ha! My g/f experimented with several services and they all sucked. I could hardly understand her. She ended up with a pacemaker and has to have a box at home that will let her pacemaker communicate with the hospital and the manufacturer. Stuff like that doesn’t work with VoIP, of course so she had to switch back to POTS. Thank goodness!
I’ve used cheap international phone cards in this country and others before. Of course all or most are VoIP nowadays. They sound like s***!
I work for a very high tech company. A few years ago they put our travel department on VoIP. I never heard anything so bad. I transact all of my business with them via e-mail.
I am responsible for a large telecom network that uses a couple of hundred boxes made by a huge tech giant everybody has heard of. Sometimes their people in India participate in our periodic conference bridges. I can hardly understand them and their accent is not the problem. Honestly, it is painful. It’s like the announcements in big old train and bus stations. You can tell somebody’s speaking but you can’t understand a word of it.
I’ve never heard anybody say that VoIP was better than the PSTN. I went to many trade shows when I worked for an equipment manufacturer. I went to lots of lectures on VoIP. In every one somebody asked what about quality. Invariably the speaker would whip out his cell phone and say it would sound every bit as good as that and I would gag.
Quality is not behind the rush to embrace VoIP. They’re trying to save bandwidth. Why? Because they think internet bandwidth is unlimited and free. It’s ironic. Everybody is now saying that 64KB/S is a scandalous amount of bandwidth to consume for one call. But bandwidth has never been cheaper!
Check your facts man!
Don

http://www.menga.net Rich Menga
Your experience with VoIP has been subpar because you’re still using the same crappy handsets and headsets, so OF COURSE it will sound bad. Read the article again and get a clue.
Better yet, have a Skype-to-Skype audio conversation first using a quality headset. Then you’ll hear the difference between the crappy 8000Hz of a POTS line compared to 22050Hz VoIP.

http://digg.com/tech_news/Cheap_Voip_Service_from_the_top_VOIP_carrier_Phone_Power Cheap Voip Service
Great article. The husband and I dumped landlines for voip about 2 years ago and haven’t looked back since. Our friends are cell phone only but we only have prepaid so this works out. Thanks!