the end of voice telephony

[GrayHare]

Between alternative communication (messaging, Skype, etc.) and robocalls, my need for voice telephony is approaching zero. To decide about economizing phone service, I've been monitoring use more closely this year. Each month the phones here have rung hundreds of times, yet an average of just one call per month has been useful to me. That's an abysmal signal-to-noise ratio. Most of my friends, family, and other contacts now communicate in other ways.

Others are insulating themselves for voice telephony too. Of the few outbound calls I make to non-family members, almost all have some sort of robocall filter, or recording telling me to visit a web site, or send a message. It's rare that I reach and speak to a live person any longer. With younger generations using texting more and more, I suspect voice telephony use by other than robocallers will continue to diminish. Voice telephony is going the way of Usenet.

 

[Gotadimple]

Voice will always be with us, until the infrastructure world-wide changes. Your choice of telephony is dependent on broadband that requires electricity for a modem, or a satellite if everything is powered by a cell phone.

In the US, voice will be with us as long as telephone companies can provide internet access through the DSL lines.

 

[Walt34]

DW will say that you can take away her telephone when you pry it from her cold, dead hands. Rare is the day when she doesn't make at least one call to friends and family.

The end of voice telephone isn't going to happen in her or my lifetimes.

 

[samclem]

If we'd invented messaging/email first and were only now inventing person-to-person voice comms, it would be hailed as the invention of the century.
"It's the greatest thing! I can hear the tone of the other person's voice, all the ambiguity and missed nuance of texting is gone! And, I don't have to see the screen or type on a tiny keyboard, so it's much easier to do other things as I speak. I just tuck the device between my head and shoulder and I'm in complete, instant, real-time two-way comms with my eyes and both hands free! And the efficiency of it! I can speak at a regular pace, conveying a lot more information in a given time than trying to use that tiny keyboard. More importantly, we can have a quick back-and-forth exchange of ideas and questions/answers in real time that we could never do via text. You've gotta try it!"

I >much< prefer a telephone to Scype/Facetime, etc. The balky audio and "half-duplex" communication kills the spontaneity of the conversation. No, I really don't think I gain much from seeing that person on the other end--we're just both shackled to that ill-sounding box until the event mercifully ends. I always want to say "Skype One to Skype Two--If you can read me and we aren't talking over each other yet again, request you call me on a real telephone and we'll talk like humans. We already know what we look like. Over"

samclem (Not a Curmudgeon! but get off my lawn)

 

[jjquantz]

I don't know, it seems like 50% of the drivers around here are yakking on their phones. I think voice telephony still has a lot of drivers to kill off before it goes away.

I do agree with GrayHare's sentiment, however. It's usefulness to me seems to be almost nonexistent.

 

[Options]

Between alternative communication (messaging, Skype, etc.) and robocalls, my need for voice telephony is approaching zero. To decide about economizing phone service, I've been monitoring use more closely this year. Each month the phones here have rung hundreds of times, yet an average of just one call per month has been useful to me. That's an abysmal signal-to-noise ratio. Most of my friends, family, and other contacts now communicate in other ways.

Others are insulating themselves for voice telephony too. Of the few outbound calls I make to non-family members, almost all have some sort of robocall filter, or recording telling me to visit a web site, or send a message. It's rare that I reach and speak to a live person any longer. With younger generations using texting more and more, I suspect voice telephony use by other than robocallers will continue to diminish. Voice telephony is going the way of Usenet.

I couldn't agree more. I find voice telephony at best annoying, at worst, a complete waste of my time (why people like to waste time on the phone is beyond me; if you're in my social circle I'd rather hang out in person--only exception is perhaps long-distance family members).

Messaging is my communication tool of choice. As I don't [-]use[/-] kill time on [-]Facebook[/-] TimeSuck, or any social media, this isn't an option. However, I really like the idea of the robocall filter and will experiment with directing people to text me going forward.

 

[Fedup]

They are for emergency. But I rarely pick up phone anymore. I use it to call out. Beside that's the phone number for business. I don't want everybody to call me on my cell phone. I rarely give out my cell phone.

 

[GrayHare]

For me robocalls killed voice telephony. When the phone rings now 99% of the time it's an unwanted call, so I let a machine answer them all. Other people are doing the same such that we no longer talk to each other.

Since the younger crowd doesn't gain voice experience, they leave contentless messages like, "Hi - call me." When I return such a call I usually reach only their machine, so I've learned to stop returning the "Hi - call me" calls. For me usefulness of voice telephony has gone way down.

 

[jimbee]

If we'd invented messaging/email first...

We did, they were called telegrams.

 

[FUEGO]

We haven't had a traditional land line for a long time after switching to VOIP. We've been using Google Voice connected to a VOIP adapter for the past 5-6 years I think (Obihai - $35 one time purchase for the adapter).

We still get a call or two every day. Half that is robocalls or reminder calls from services or kids' school ("don't forget your dentist appt tomorrow Mr. FUEGO" "This is a reminder from Kids Elementary School to wear green on Tuesday for school spirit"). Very little spam/junk phone calls at all.

The other half of our calls are my mom or someone from DW's family because they want to reach us instantly instead of wait a few hours for facebook/email/text responses.

I don't mind and don't see ditching the VOIP phones any time soon. Too easy to pick up a handset and chat (though all calls ring to my cell too) incoming or outgoing. Handy to have a phone in each main area of the house.

I do wish more businesses, services, and government agencies would use email or other electronic communications more often. It's easier for me and I have a record of what they are telling me. Nothing more frustrating than dropping everything and breaking my neck to run to the phone just to realize it's a reminder phone call that a service person is visiting us tomorrow some time from 9 am to 4 pm. Yeah, got it, it's on the calendar, thanks.

My preferred method of outbound communication is definitely facebook or email. Much easier and quicker to get in touch with someone that way and get a response back in a timely fashion compared to playing phone tag.

 

[kcowan]

All the people we want to talk to have special rings. Everything else goes to voicemail. But we do get calls on the landline, the VOIP line and the Mobile. I wish we could fix that problem.

Voice calling seems to be required for medical/dental appointments. I also enjoy dictating messages to my iPhone. It is very good.

Skype and Facetime open up new possibilities for close friends and family.

(I did enjoy sending voice messages to my staff as a corporate executive back 20 years ago. It was like an email distribution list but with the personal voice touch. And they were geographically dispersed. All auto-magically handled by Nortel.)

 

[rodi]

I got tired of sales calls, political calls, etc. We had magicjack - and I forwarded it to Google voice. So now, I see if someone calls in my gmail - get a bad voice translation if they left a call, and can listen to the message if it's something I can't decipher from the text. But I can still pick up the landline phones and call out.... They just don't ring incoming calls anymore.

So much aggravation GONE... Magic jack is cheap, google voice is free. No more big landline bills, and no more unwanted "survey" calls.

 

[Sunset]

For me robocalls killed voice telephony. When the phone rings now 99% of the time it's an unwanted call, so I let a machine answer them all. Other people are doing the same such that we no longer talk to each other.

Since the younger crowd doesn't gain voice experience, they leave contentless messages like, "Hi - call me." When I return such a call I usually reach only their machine, so I've learned to stop returning the "Hi - call me" calls. For me usefulness of voice telephony has gone way down.

So true.

Or relatives phone and don't leave a message at all.
I only return calls when someone tells me what the heck they want to talk about as that is an expression of their interest level.