Why in some people’s hands phones don't work
For over 13 years I have been working in the company for the work of mobile phones in the network and with the services provided. During this time, thousands of people turned to our tech support accusing the operator of all mortal sins. Somewhere there really were network problems, but very often, especially from the first years after the appearance of cellular telephony on the market and up to the present, we were faced with a banal misunderstanding of the principles of communication.
It often happens that the user himself with his hands and habits, acting contrary to the laws of nature and physics, creates problems for himself, and then complains about the operator, or the manufacturer of the phone.
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Under the cut - the very basics of how to improve communication, probably familiar to many. Nevertheless, I will start with them: at least, many of us will be able to see what our elderly relatives are doing wrong, and then I will explain why it is necessary even for the most experienced of us.
Recently, her daughter started using another phone model. Just a couple of days after that, she called and began to complain that the interlocutors complained about the poor quality of voice transmission. At the same time, during the conversation, I myself heard a deaf sound, without high frequencies, and, accordingly, with reduced intelligibility. The reason for the poor quality of speech transmission turned out to be banal - she was holding a new “toy” in her hand in such a way that it covered the microphone opening, muffling the sound of her own voice. This is the simplest, but also one of the most frequent causes of communication deterioration.
If the manner of holding the phone causes a shift in the position of the loudspeaker relative to the ear, the user will not hear the interlocutor. Trying to fix it, instead of changing the position of the phone, some increase the volume beyond the necessary measure, which leads to an echo effect - too loud the signal spreads through the elements of the phone’s design and reaches the microphone. Of course, this mechanism is not always the cause of the echo, but if the decrease in the volume of the echo effect removes, then ...
You can often see a person talking on the phone, or presses him with his fingers attached to the upper part of the body to his ear, or even covers his palm almost completely. Many say that they improve the conditions of communication, closing on external noise. Only in reality in this case there is a significant weakening of the radio signal by hand tissues. The body is a poorly but electrically conductive medium. The negative effect of such a manner to keep the phone even triple occurs:
Last year, at one IT event, for the sake of interest, I began to count how many people were holding phones incorrectly. Suddenly it turned out that about 90% are doing something wrong.
It is best to take the phone with your fingers for the side ribs, without pressing its body to the palm or cheek, and place the loudspeaker in front of the auricle so that the sound gets to where it should be - in the ear canal.
Unlike a wired phone, a cell phone uses a substantially less stable, and even capricious, medium to deliver a signal to a handset - a radio channel. Penetrating through obstacles (building structures, parts of the body, leaves of trees, car body, and so on) the radio signal fades. Radio waves tend to be reflected, added, or subtracted, depending on the path and distance that they have to overcome. As a result, there is an interference effect, which leads to the fact that in some places the signal increases, but in other places it can unexpectedly sharply decrease.
This effect can be noticed listening to the radio in the car. Sometimes at a stop, the signal of an FM radio station suddenly begins to be accompanied by wheezing, but once you move the car forward or backward a little, the sound becomes clear again. The appearance of wheezing is just caused by the fact that the receiver antenna has fallen into the zone where the signal is weakened due to interference, and a small movement of the car transports the antenna to the zone with a stronger signal. This effect can be observed even in the zone with a fairly high average level of the radio signal.
Talking on the phone, many are so addicted that they cease to control their actions - being in a building whose walls greatly weaken the radio signal, being carried away by the conversation, they run away from the window in the middle of the room where the signal is significantly lower and the quality of communication falls.
Hearing the “metallic” timbre of the sound or loss of speech fragments, it is useful to try to move the phone (along with the head, of course) to a place where the base station signal has a higher level - closer to the window, door, open space, and simply move or turn outside around its axis. These movements can help improve communication conditions and eliminate the loss of speech fragments. It is important to do this quickly enough so that the connection does not break due to the violation of the radio channel.
Recently, I had to help a subscriber who suffered for several years from the fact that they could not get through to his mobile phone from landline phones. When clarifying the situation, it quickly became clear that the problem was in the software error of the phone, which was solved by the manufacturer almost immediately after the release of this phone model, the Russian market (year in 2005).
It was possible to update the software of the phone, or in the service center under warranty, or even at home, since many phone models already allow doing this, but for some reason this simple idea did not occur to a person.
Of course, it is not good when the manufacturer makes mistakes in the software of their products. But after all programs are written by people who, as you know, are prone to making mistakes. Standards, which set forth the rules of phone behavior, have volumes of thousands of pages, not counting the many versions for each of them. Yes, and standards are written by people too. As a result, there may be oversights caused by:
But in practice it turns out that a significant part of subscribers complains about the problems with the quality of communication, but they do not make efforts to update the software in their phone and get rid of the errors fixed by the manufacturer. And some also require guarantees that after the software update the problem will definitely be solved! I do not at all urge to update the software for the sake of the process itself, but if during use any communication problems are identified, then updating the device software can be the way out.
PS Sorry for the educational program. If anything, I have been working in the company for a long time, and all this time I have been working on the technical side of working on a network of various mobile devices and their compatibility with services. If you are interested in a particular topic, always ready to respond in detail and in-depth with a lot of details.
It often happens that the user himself with his hands and habits, acting contrary to the laws of nature and physics, creates problems for himself, and then complains about the operator, or the manufacturer of the phone.
')
Under the cut - the very basics of how to improve communication, probably familiar to many. Nevertheless, I will start with them: at least, many of us will be able to see what our elderly relatives are doing wrong, and then I will explain why it is necessary even for the most experienced of us.
Keep it up!
Recently, her daughter started using another phone model. Just a couple of days after that, she called and began to complain that the interlocutors complained about the poor quality of voice transmission. At the same time, during the conversation, I myself heard a deaf sound, without high frequencies, and, accordingly, with reduced intelligibility. The reason for the poor quality of speech transmission turned out to be banal - she was holding a new “toy” in her hand in such a way that it covered the microphone opening, muffling the sound of her own voice. This is the simplest, but also one of the most frequent causes of communication deterioration.
Echo
If the manner of holding the phone causes a shift in the position of the loudspeaker relative to the ear, the user will not hear the interlocutor. Trying to fix it, instead of changing the position of the phone, some increase the volume beyond the necessary measure, which leads to an echo effect - too loud the signal spreads through the elements of the phone’s design and reaches the microphone. Of course, this mechanism is not always the cause of the echo, but if the decrease in the volume of the echo effect removes, then ...
Handheld jammer
You can often see a person talking on the phone, or presses him with his fingers attached to the upper part of the body to his ear, or even covers his palm almost completely. Many say that they improve the conditions of communication, closing on external noise. Only in reality in this case there is a significant weakening of the radio signal by hand tissues. The body is a poorly but electrically conductive medium. The negative effect of such a manner to keep the phone even triple occurs:
- The phone can not always correctly decode the weakened signal against the background of interference, and as a result of errors occurring when receiving a radio signal, fragments of speech begin to fall out (a “metallic” ring tone appears, or sometimes even silence);
- The base station, in order to ensure the normal reception of a signal from the telephone, gives the phone a command to increase the output power, which is spent on heating not only the tissues of the hand, but also the head;
- A waste of battery power on this background looks like a trifle.
How IT-specialists are keeping
Last year, at one IT event, for the sake of interest, I began to count how many people were holding phones incorrectly. Suddenly it turned out that about 90% are doing something wrong.
How to keep?
It is best to take the phone with your fingers for the side ribs, without pressing its body to the palm or cheek, and place the loudspeaker in front of the auricle so that the sound gets to where it should be - in the ear canal.
Interference
Unlike a wired phone, a cell phone uses a substantially less stable, and even capricious, medium to deliver a signal to a handset - a radio channel. Penetrating through obstacles (building structures, parts of the body, leaves of trees, car body, and so on) the radio signal fades. Radio waves tend to be reflected, added, or subtracted, depending on the path and distance that they have to overcome. As a result, there is an interference effect, which leads to the fact that in some places the signal increases, but in other places it can unexpectedly sharply decrease.
This effect can be noticed listening to the radio in the car. Sometimes at a stop, the signal of an FM radio station suddenly begins to be accompanied by wheezing, but once you move the car forward or backward a little, the sound becomes clear again. The appearance of wheezing is just caused by the fact that the receiver antenna has fallen into the zone where the signal is weakened due to interference, and a small movement of the car transports the antenna to the zone with a stronger signal. This effect can be observed even in the zone with a fairly high average level of the radio signal.
Talking on the phone, many are so addicted that they cease to control their actions - being in a building whose walls greatly weaken the radio signal, being carried away by the conversation, they run away from the window in the middle of the room where the signal is significantly lower and the quality of communication falls.
Hearing the “metallic” timbre of the sound or loss of speech fragments, it is useful to try to move the phone (along with the head, of course) to a place where the base station signal has a higher level - closer to the window, door, open space, and simply move or turn outside around its axis. These movements can help improve communication conditions and eliminate the loss of speech fragments. It is important to do this quickly enough so that the connection does not break due to the violation of the radio channel.
0-day version?
Recently, I had to help a subscriber who suffered for several years from the fact that they could not get through to his mobile phone from landline phones. When clarifying the situation, it quickly became clear that the problem was in the software error of the phone, which was solved by the manufacturer almost immediately after the release of this phone model, the Russian market (year in 2005).
It was possible to update the software of the phone, or in the service center under warranty, or even at home, since many phone models already allow doing this, but for some reason this simple idea did not occur to a person.
Of course, it is not good when the manufacturer makes mistakes in the software of their products. But after all programs are written by people who, as you know, are prone to making mistakes. Standards, which set forth the rules of phone behavior, have volumes of thousands of pages, not counting the many versions for each of them. Yes, and standards are written by people too. As a result, there may be oversights caused by:
- Mistakes made while writing standards;
- The absence of requirements that should describe the behavior of devices under certain circumstances;
- Different understanding of the same text of standards by their authors and system developers;
- Errors in the implementation of algorithms.
But in practice it turns out that a significant part of subscribers complains about the problems with the quality of communication, but they do not make efforts to update the software in their phone and get rid of the errors fixed by the manufacturer. And some also require guarantees that after the software update the problem will definitely be solved! I do not at all urge to update the software for the sake of the process itself, but if during use any communication problems are identified, then updating the device software can be the way out.
PS Sorry for the educational program. If anything, I have been working in the company for a long time, and all this time I have been working on the technical side of working on a network of various mobile devices and their compatibility with services. If you are interested in a particular topic, always ready to respond in detail and in-depth with a lot of details.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/129165/
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