This happened once before. It was very clear before the big carriers introduced the 5G spectrum upgrades that the 4G network was getting badly overloaded. I can remember being on calls where I could barely hear people at the other end. I remember having dropped calls several times per week.
But the network problems went away within a relatively short period of time after the introduction of 5G spectrum that also coincided with some general upgrades to the overall cellular networks. This makes a lot of sense, because the introduction of the new spectrum means that carriers were able to spread existing traffic over two networks instead of just one. Anybody using the 5G network after they were introduced got great service at first because the networks were relatively empty. 4G networks also improved as the traffic decreased.
Call quality also got noticeably better. We can’t know exactly what improved voice quality. It could have been from spreading voice calls across two networks. It also might have been due to new voice technologies. For example, the major carriers implanted Voice over LTE (VoLTE) which introduced techniques to improve the quality of audio signals. This technology is automatic for phones that are certified by the carriers to use the technology.
There are several reasons why cellular calling might be deteriorating. First is the overall continued increase in cellular data traffic that puts more stress on cell sites every year. I’ve not been able to find specific statistics for the overall increase in cellular traffic volumes nationwide, but I’ve seen folks who have speculated that it’s north of 20% per year. You don’t have to be a network engineer to do enough simple math to see that compounded 20% growth can put major stress on all components of a network after only three or four years. It was this growth of traffic that drove the carriers to rush implementation of 5G networks. There were markets before the 5G upgrades that were getting close to collapsing.
Another reason that quality might be deteriorating is that carriers decided not to implement small cells in the way they were promising five years ago. They claimed there would be a small cell site in every neighborhood by now, and the reality is that the vast majority of the small cells never got built. Carriers looked at the capital cost and decided it was too expensive except in the most densely populated places.
The final reason might be FWA cellular broadband. The big cell carriers have added over 7 million broadband customers to cell sites. This is mostly home broadband, and ISPs all understand how the broadband demand from households has continued to grow. According to OpenVault, the average home in 2019 used 218 gigabytes of data per month, and that ballooned by 561 gigabytes in 2023. Cell sites were not designed to provide the steady streaming used for home broadband uses like connecting to schools and offices, gaming, and non-stop video streaming.
The carriers acknowledge that FWA traffic can impair normal cellular traffic and the FWA product comes with the warning that the carriers might throttle traffic any time that cell traffic gets too heavy. But now that the carriers have added million of customers to FWA, I have to wonder how willing they are to cut FWA broadband speeds? All the ISPs I know tell me that the public has grown exceedingly intolerant of slowdown or lapses in broadband, and I have to wonder how many homes will keep FWA if they get throttled too often. Deterioration of cellular performance might be due to a reluctance to throttle FWA broadband customers.
All of this is conjecture and based upon purely subjective evidence from folks I know. But these are all industry folks who are good at noticing this sort of thing, and I have more problems with cell calls than I did a year ago. I speculate that cellular network deterioration would be local problem and not global, so it might matter where you live. I’m curious about the experience of readers.