Charlie Baker

Unlike wireline service, mobile phones rely on often precarious over-the-air radio transmissions to carry time-sensitive voice traffic. It's been more than five years since Verizon first aired its popular "Do you hear me now?" marketing campaign, yet a majority of consumers still wonder why they don't get the same level of call quality portrayed in the commercials. Many tend to blame the poor sound quality on the phone itself. But, it takes a lot more than a high-quality handset to make a high-quality phone call. Most phone manufacturers don't focus their testing on how handsets perform over particular networks, and some wireless carriers don't do comprehensive testing on how specific handsets' perform in their networks. Therein lies the problem. Unlike wireline servic... (more)