I think this would add to the immersion, seeing some visual explanation of how NPC's are communicating with each other long distance, in other cities, miles apart from each other.

I'm not expecting NPC's to be walking around with smartphones and androids, or even being able to use an in-game phone like in GTA V, but this is an obvious technology that should be acknowledged. Especially since the Fallout universe is based off an alternate future reality that takes place 200 years after the 50's.

Post war technology has radio broadcast signals, power armor, computers, vertibirds, laser muskets and more, but no evidence or working phones or any form of long distance voice communication.

It would be cool to at least see NPC's from time to time using either their Pipboys, or some sort of landline or mobile phones, maybe even walkie talkies to communicate long distance with each other. Perhaps even using your Pipboy to make and receive calls from in-game NPC's from time to time would be cool.

Yes we need telegraphs

Well, we know the NCR used radios to communicate between bases and coordinate troops, and it's likely that the Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel did as well. There's also courier services and the trade caravans to deliver messages, as well as your ordinary citizen making a trek for whatever reason.

Telegraphs and telephones wouldn't be the best things to use to communicate, because you'd have to go through the trouble of either repairing all those lines, or making brand new ones. I think that the use shortwave radios would still be preferable.

HF Radio can travel vast distances. Even to the other side of the world if the atmospherics are right.

As someone has already stated, RADIOS exist in this universe. Perfect way of communication considering we've been using them for 100 years or more.

Eh I could see why it wouldn't be done. Do you really want to advertise where you are in the wasteland? Sounds like a good way to get dipped or turned into raider bait. The wasteland is downright hostile, if your going to make contact with another group of people, you want to do it on your terms.

Ever hear of radio? It gets used a lot in Fallout

They still have some form of internet with all the back and forth emails you can read on hacked computers. If they can upkeep the internet, phone lines shouldn't be much of a stretch to maintain.

I doubt they exist for anyone outside a military group, and even then a secure radio channel would suffice.

In the post-war world, maintaining the infrastructure for communication systems would be almost impossible. Physical lines would be at a near constant risk of being severed by mutants, bandits, etc. Wireless forms (outside radio) would need facilities or satellites to operate. And the game gives the impression that the wastes are FULL of stretches of barren nothing with pockets of civilization or cities in between. Who's going to traverse all that to keep comms working?

What I'm trying to get at in my half asleep state, is that such communication methods are pointless or not worth the effort

phones dont make much sense considering how little the world has returned to normal. they require towers and in some cases satalites. in order to use a phone it would basicly have to be reinvented and i doubt most of the wasteland has technology to make the required circuit boards

There's short-wave radio that's been used in FO3/NV, just not by the player him/herself.

Keep in mind that the technology of Fallout doesn't employ microchip technology, so miniaturization is in many cases not possible. While Fallout has terminals for example, they lack the power of a personal computer - hence the command prompt interface.

Also keep in mind that a global scale nuclear war happened, nearly extinguishing the human race. The cities and towns are scraping by, by are often a long shot from doing more then surviving. Which means industrial scale production of technology is hampered - starting by finding resources, over finding the proper tools to make things with and ending by simply having skilled workers to produce things.

200 years sounds like a long time, but consider how long until the population starts to recover.

The radio is used as broadcast, one way signal in the Fallout universe. We still haven't physically seen and long distance, two way form of communication other than the internet.

The internet they have are enclosed networks. It's not the internet we know of. It's a few terminals directly linked together in a building with no outside connection except MAYBE to other facilities of the same company.

So how do you explain the internet and email communication they still maintain post war?

What do you mean by "long distance"? DC trying to call NV? I doubt the two even know the other exists anymore. Or do you mean like Shady Sands to Hoover Dam? In which case: radio.

I mean long distance like Shady Sands to Hoover Dam or Megaton to Rivet City. It would be cool to actually see evidence of some form of two way communication in action other than reading emails from hacked computers.

Um... http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/NCR_emergency_radio.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Return_to_Sender.

You mean the left over emails from before the war?

Or the isolated networks that are used in a few "high tech" locations?

There is no current internet and email system linking terminals.

Then simple. Radio.

The world has changed. Noone's going to ring-up their BFF and casually chat. Most people don't even leave their community, so who is there to contact?

For the amount the settlements DO talk, it's just not worth setting-up and maintaining phone lines, switch boards, etc. You need to talk? Fire up your HAM radio or pay a courier.

I get what you're trying to say, but's it's just not something that happens. For what they need, HAM radios do the job perfectly and don't need much to keep working.

EDIT: as for military or government, radio is wiser as there are fewer ways to sabotage it. No lines to cut or tap. And radio is far more portable than a landline (cell's never existed ever in the Fallout lore)

I don't like this idea at all. Phones require a lot of infrastructure and support, which was either destroyed in the Great War or is lacking after the fall of civilization.

Landlines: most telephone wires were destroyed. And it takes -a lot- of support to get them running and maintain them. You have to do maintenance, set up service, administer numbers, run switchboards, etc. This probably isn't feasible in the postwar fallout universe.

Radio towers: most of them were also destroyed. Short-range radio would work though. And we have seen that in some past fallout games (GNR, violin lady, etc.)

Cell phones: totally unrealistic here. They weren't invented in this timeline, and cell phones require high tech manufacturing, satellite support, and so forth.

Duely noted but those radios are exclusive to the NCR and military usuage. I mean personal radios or even 'civilians', for lack of a better word, using radios, phones or Pipboys to communicate with each other. Not everyone was poor out of bottlecaps in the Wasteland.

Networks, isolated or not, are the fundamental basis of what the internet is. Even LAN's like Vault Tech's interweb could be reinstated, which is basically the internet in its most primitive form.

Lol, HAM radios sound more of a sureshot than hiring a courier who might not make it and end up like your courier in New Vegas with a bullet in the head.

HAM radio technology sounds like something that can be implemented in Pipboys. If you can use GPS technology to track where you are and know when enemies are nearby, even shortwave burst transmissions should exist outside the military in Fallout.

You do realize that FO is based on an alternative 1950-60's, right?

The sci-fi and real life technology of that era didn't have facebook and cell phones, so it just wouldn't fit into the world.
It was atomic, cyborg and laser tech that was popular.... Not smart phones, and not the tech of today.

I acknowledged all of this and more in my first post.

It wouldn't really fit in well with the universe however I'm all for an extended use of the ham radio's that we've seen of course communication would be choppy, etc and would be more...Fallout