[Discuss] AT&T eliminating copper phone lines

[mark at buttery.org (Shirley Márquez Dúlcey)]

> As I said, VOIP quality *can* be better than POTS. (But that's
> not the way to bet.)

The base voice quality of VoIP is higher than POTS because they're
using more bits and a better codec. On the other hand, latency is
likely to be higher, meaning more annoying delay. And if there are
network bottlenecks, strange things can happen.

The quality of HD voice calls on cellular networks is also very high.
That's done as voice over LTE (VoLTE) so you need to be in an area
with LTE service and have a phone that implements it. The other end
also has to have the same or be a VoIP line. (Or either or both ends
can be using WiFi calling.) It wouldn't have worked well on cellular
networks before LTE; even if high data rates are available like HSPA+
the latency is too high.