alt Hacker News> I do not believe for even a second that Telecoms Grade switching equipment is unable to do the same.
The example should rather have been some telecom carrier in Africa or India. Telco equipment is expensive, the technology is ridiculously complex and getting companies especially in less well-off regions to replace aging stuff and updating it to modern standards is next to impossible. Think about it, the globally connected phone system includes countries where you get 10 GBit/s symmetric fiber in your home and it includes countries where people don't even have running water because they're so poor.
The fact that we in Western countries can have a realtime conversation with someone in the Saharan desert or in an Indian village that requires days worth of travel [1] is nothing short of a miracle.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/5/8/an-election-booth...
> Telco equipment is expensive...
Sure, agreed.
> ...the technology is ridiculously complex...
Odd. I could have sworn that Caller ID, Customer-initiated Dialback, "Tell me the number of my most recent caller", and "Keep calling this number for the next half hour, and ring me if the call is answered" were features that were available on the POTS since the early 1990s. I agree that the tech's complex, but the R&D for the stuff I'm talking about has been over and done with for at least thirty five years. There are adult HN users who have never lived in a world without this stuff.
> ...getting companies especially in less well-off regions to replace aging stuff and updating it to modern standards is next to impossible.
I don't see how that's the problem of "The West"? If it's actually a problem, instruct "Western" telecoms to send a couple hundred-million dollars in last-gen equipment, along with the techs required to install it and let them declare its original purchase price and the full cost of the manpower as a tax credit.
> ...is nothing short of a miracle.
If we ignore the existence of long-range radio, and if this were prior to 1965 or -at latest- 1970, I might agree. But, like, we've had satellite telecommunications for nearly sixty years, terrestrial microwave transceivers for a couple of decades longer, and short- and long-wave transceivers for far, far longer than either.
Additionally... I don't know if you've noticed, but it's not uncommon to have a satellite phone in your pocket these days.