How Phone Call Data Rate Works

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What Is Phone Call Data Rate?
Phone call data rate refers to the amount of data transmitted during a voice call over a mobile network or internet connection. Traditionally, phone calls were analog signals transmitted via circuit-switched networks, but modern calls are increasingly digital, often carried over data networks like 3G, 4G LTE, and 5G or over Wi-Fi.

Data rate is typically measured in kilobits per second (kbps) or megabits per second (Mbps). It indicates how much data is sent and received each second during a call. For example, a standard voice call over a mobile network might use between 8 kbps and 64 kbps, depending on the technology and codecs used.

Voice Codecs and Compression
When you speak on a call, your voice is converted vp security email list into digital data using a codec (coder-decoder). Different codecs compress voice data differently, impacting the data rate:

Narrowband codecs like AMR-NB typically use about 12.2 kbps.

Wideband codecs like AMR-WB improve audio quality and may use about 24 kbps.

Advanced codecs such as Opus, used in VoIP calls, can adjust data rates dynamically, from around 6 kbps up to 64 kbps or more, balancing quality and bandwidth.

Compression reduces the data rate by eliminating redundant audio information, allowing efficient transmission over networks.

Circuit-Switched vs. Packet-Switched Calls
Traditional phone calls on 2G and 3G networks use circuit-switched technology, which reserves a fixed bandwidth for the duration of the call, often around 64 kbps.

Modern voice calls, especially on 4G LTE and 5G, use Voice over LTE (VoLTE) or Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi), which are packet-switched. Here, voice data is broken into packets and transmitted over the internet or cellular data networks. Packet switching is more efficient and flexible, enabling better use of bandwidth and often lower data rates.