[gerdesj]

When I were a nipper lag/latency over 30ms was considered a bit crap for voice unless satellite links were involved. That's for circuit switched networks. Human conversation works best with a sub 25ms latency and you will start to notice lag at 30ms.

Nowadays with all our massively more powerful links (Gb vs Kb) but packet switched, we often end up resorting to a form of half duplex radio protocol. That's just voice, let alone video.

That's what you get when you abrogate your comms to a hyper scaler that will never scale to the point of what you would like because it will damage profits upstream.

Whilst your end will be a phone or laptop or whatever - with gobs of capacity, the hyper scaler bit will be woefully under powered for your call but just enough to keep comms going and your subscription dumping cash into the coffers.

You end up re-inventing how to talk to someone over a satellite link in the 1970-80s ... in 2026! I (UK, 55 y/o) can clearly remember my parents telling me how to talk to great aunt Maye in Australia on the blower. Nowadays we have the internet to packet switch instead of circuit switch which is generally capable of ~10-50ms latency nearly anywhere, where mostly copper is involved. However call quality seems to be shit!

[_carbyau_]

How much did a phone call cost per minute from UK to Australia in the 70's and 80's ?

The modern experience is not perfect but audio is usually far better than the 70's and 80's, video is often an option, and in general the experience is orders of magnitude cheaper.

[gerdesj]

"How much did a phone call cost per minute from UK to Australia in the 70's and 80's ?"

I think around £5 per minute or more. A quick search found this: https://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/576_image.html#Table%... so my memory is not too far off and that is the other way. Bear in mind that a squid (£1) was worth rather more in the '70s, than now.

A circuit switched call in the '70s - '90s (at least) within the UK was nigh on perfect. There was no noticeable latency. Call quality was way better than a modern Teams or Zoom call (with no video). Your £500 laptop has shit microphones and speakers but you do insist on not using them like a "dog and bone" but instead as a "comms solution".

[simfree]

PCMU and PCMA voice frames are 20ms or 40ms, and no one is running with no jitter buffer, so your 30ms number doesn't make sense.

Even circuit switched networks are not often below 30ms, to hit that you'd need to make a local phone call on a fully analog circuit.

[gerdesj]

Standards such as G.711 and co don't "enforce" a latency because they can't. Latency is a property of the network, not the traffic.

You cannot use terms such as "PCMU and PCMA voice frames are 20ms or 40ms" because that makes no sense whatsoever. PCMU and PCMA are protocols that traverse a network - they do not define it.

I'm old enough to have used circuit switched telephony for some years and perhaps you are too. I recall it as being largely latency free, in that a call never sounded weird unless a satellite was involved, in which case the call costs were horrific and you ended up doing a sort of informal form of radio protocol to talk, which generally ended up in a rather scrambled mess of a conversation.

I can remember amassing a stack of 20 10p coins and calling my mum from the UK to West Germany in the '80s and having to feed the coins faster than I could talk. I sent an aerogram later.