As some have pointed out, we saw radios being used for two way communications in NV.
But, any of the radios with speakers and a hand held, CB style mic attached to them and in F3 or NV are two way radios. I always just figured the ones we see in settled buildings were used as such.


The original FO had hand held military radios.

You're missing my point...
It would stop being in the Fallout world if they had cellphones and internet.... Because those are not a part of the 50's aesthetic.

Pipboys are a bit to rare to really use as a reliable source of two way communication, its basically only by the power of being a protagonist that we always have one.

I guess my question is: Where is the need?

In a post-apocalyptic setting, need trumps most everything. Luxury items take a backseat to providing the bare necessities of life. As such, most towns are insular and focused on themselves. They aren't concerned with the goings ons beyond their borders unless those goings ons are going to be goings ons in their borders if something isn't done (Raiders, Super Mutants, the Legion, etc). There's just not much of a need to establish lines of communications between settlements, especially since doing so would pretty much necessitate some level of alliance/cooperation between the two settlements, thus making their problems your problems.

The organizations that do use radios are united under one banner, rather than a loose confederation of independent settlements. They have a need to communicate with each other.

Like others have said Radio's are used.

Phones would require communications satellite or someone to repair all those phone lines... and sorry those phone lines arn't getting repaired in FO4.. There might be a certain vault dweller that's tearing them apart rather than fixing them... ... You know copper is a required resource for settlement building right...

So...I'm sneaking around a group of deathclaws and my phone rings馃槚. I think even if there were phones the lone survivor wouldn't use one.

Neither are gatling lasers, power armor, and maglevs. They had their 50s aesthetic, but were way ahead of us in technology according to their timeline. Even without the implementation of smart phones and ipods, one would imagine that after so many decades, there could be or would be some level of improvement to society and the Fallout world...but with that said, Fallout is pretty off the wall anyway, not to realistic, and the game wouldn't be Fallout without that post-apoc feel, even after so many years.

  

they never invented the transistor.. smartphones are impossible in the fallout universe.. and its why all the computers are basic computers that only display text. without the transistor they focused completely on nuclear technology to continue warfare and the computer as we know it today was never invented.

its also why so little has advanced for average citizens... pretty much all the technology after 1950's was dedicated solely to warfare.. which is why weapons like power armor and guns have improved.. but everything else stayed basically the same as it wasnt important to bother with when everyone was at war.

lol, I see what you're saying, but it's incredibly unrealistic. I'm not going to be nitpicky about it though, it's just a game.

I don't see the point in having modern phones in the game. The timeline branched off and it makes better sense to not see those items in the Fallout world. iphone- no thanks.

Having control of tech should be the domain of the Outcasts, Institute, Enclave etc and any advanced communication items should only be seen with them. I like that we (the general public) are struggling to get through each day. It seems more post apocalyptic.

I do agree that would make for some epic game play right there though!

"Do you really want to advertise where you are in the wasteland?"

How would they find you if you don't tell them? They didn't have GPS at the time, so they can't find your coordinates unless you tell them

Different universe. If you look at the E3 gameplay when the PC boots the pipboy up look at the text that's displayed say how much RAM there is on the pipboy, etc its advanced tech but in a much different way its big, bulky, expensive, etc. So if a mobile phone was to appear it would be worse then an 70s/80s suitcase phone.

Of course it's unrealistic. That's the point! It's "the future as seen in cheesy 50's sci-fi B-movies".

...this thread has taught me something, though. I never realized that there was anyone who thought the old terminals you find in ruins, were part of some currently active network.

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But, yeah - shortwave or Ham radio is where it's at. At least in more established areas, like the NCR & BOS bases. Given that Boston has androids and the Institute, I'm going to guess they have some sort of comm tech, probably restricted to official/important people & places. But phones, in a general way, are complicated. You either need powered lines forming a complete net for phone signals to travel, along with some sort of switching service to guide calls to the right places. Or you need a network of powered transmitter/receivers (plus, again, a central switching hub) along with the tech to make the handhelds/power them/etc. Along with a non-anarchic wasteland that'll destroy any parts that it can get it's hands/claws/guns on.

They don't have gps? Are you certain of that? They have the ability to launch space-craft. So satalites are not to far of a leap. But lets ignore that, you could use simple signal triangulation. Basically imagine three people with pipboys* setting up a net to figure out where the signal is strongest. Then bang, you have a very good idea where the person is.

Personally if I was living in the waste, I'd be very concerned at waking up with a bunch of raiders standing over me.

*Pipboys are very much overkill for the above tracking method, you could get away with something far cruder

The vast majority of emails a player runs across are ancient emails still saved on the computer the player is hacking; an internet connection is not required to pull them up. To put it in perspective, assume for a moment that you use an email client program like Outlook. Outlook will download the emails from the email server and save them on your computer. Once the emails have been pulled in, you can access them anytime you want without an internet connection. You still need an internet connection to bring in new emails or to send emails, but you can read any saved emails you want without an internet connection. That means that once the emails have been pulled in from the server, you can completely disconnect the computer from the internet and still access those saved emails.

The other small portion of emails the player will come across exist on a private LAN. LANs are easy to setup, as they don't require a lot in the way of wiring. An actual internet though, that would require that all buildings be physically wired to local hubs, those local hubs be physically connected via wires to regional hubs, and those regional hubs be physically connected via wires to a central hub. That's a massive amount of infrastructure that in the Fallout universe is both impractical and a waste of resources that could be better spend helping people survive.

Incidentally, this is basically how a phone system would have to work as well and in addition to needing massive amounts of wiring to make it work, with the number of threats in the wastes it'd be damn near impossible to keep it working. Raiders, deathclaws, etc digging up lines and destroying hubs just because, and they would, yeah not going to happen. This is why they use long range radios in the game and those work just fine. Radios were a thing in the 1950s, which is where our world and the Fallout world diverged. After that, the fallout universe focused its scientific research almost exclusively on military and robotics and from that by the time 2077 rolled around (year the bombs fell) they had things like laser guns, nuclear powered cars, and AI robot butlers, but not cell phones or flat screen HD televisions.

The heck are you taliing about? HAM radios are all over the place in 3 and NV.

I don't know....

....the fact that is "the end of the world" and the only technology that is left (so to speak) is controlled by the government. It is obviously that there will be not much or actually no communication whatsoever with other settlements or people around any locations.
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Besides maybe, the radio communication,if the net is up (but that will be rare if the bad boys are controlling that)but even then, we still have the traders caravans that with them that is the only form of communication with other settlements.
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When Howard presented the settlement option, we saw how BIG we could be made it by making the settlements populated with traders and people living in the settlement. That gives us a straight answer that the only form of trading and communication is with the caravans.
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Even though in the previous games, the caravans only work as what they supposed to, trading and nothing else, for porpuses of "Lore" and or "Logic" for what we are experiencing, we can see or assume that the caravan traders are the only way communication.

There is,..

PoseidoNet! Used be the Enclave.

The enclave is gone.

That network was a left-over and only functional because 2 stations managed to be active. At least one of which has been taken out since.

The enclave was one of very few factions with advanced knowledge AND technology. So they could set up new network systems for their purposes. And then along came some unwashed villager and chosen ones and blew it all to hell.

Yes, but not something portable. You need a very SOLID grounding system and some height between the ground plane and your transmission point to get that kind of range. Note that our current system has cell TOWERS. Hand held walkie talkies (point to point RF) have a very limited range (2-5 miles depending on surrounding terrain).

You basically need a wired transmission system to support the wireless network of towers if you are talking long range communications.

In an Apocalypse scenario, I would think someone would adapt the remains of the power grid as a potential wired communications network (Power companies have long investigated using the existing grid for digital data transmission but they have determined that with all the current dark fiber around, it's not even economical to pursue).

Sat communication is a whole different ballgame and requires a reliable method to keep working satellites in geo-synchronous orbits. Most communications satellites today go up with half a dozen or more redundant systems that can be swapped over to as because the electronics WILL fail (for a variety of reasons) and sending up another Satelite is VERY expensive.

well there ARE phones in fallout, always been...

the wired type though.

and inoperable.

thx god..

The Enclave in Fallout 2 sometimes carried Wattz walkie-talkies IIRC.

Not really, HF radio uses an inverted V antenna and a 15W man-pack and can communicate easily a few hundred kilometers away. It bounces off the ionosphere. That's why I mentioned atmospherics. We used to talk with the man-packs between Darwin and Katherine all the time during exercise, 350km (217.5 miles) away.

They may have phones in NCR territory that is protected and not under attack. Wouldn't make sense to go through the effort and redoing the lines and fixing the technology if its going to be destroyed, tapped by raiders or other hostile factions.

Would be kinda hard to protect telegraph poles from vandalism. Its not like any real civilization and urban-ism has been established. Still very tribal and primitive states of society. Maintaining a radio station and a single antenna would be a lot easier.

Walkie talkie maybe.