Does anyone know how this cell phone technology works?

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A lot of times when I call a business number, which I have been having to do a lot of lately, it's very difficult to understand what the person on the other end is saying because I can hear everything I say in the phone be echoed, if that makes sense, and the echo is actually an echo where you hear everything I saw be repaeated a fraction of second after and it's very distracting.

I do a lot of zoom meetings on the phone in my job as well and this also happens, making it hard for people to hear me as well. Does anyone know what is causing that echo by any chance, or how to fix it?

Thank you very much for advice on it! I really appreciate it!

Even on landlines you hear it when you call businesses. You speak, and then start hearing your own voice start saying what you just said half of a second earlier while you're still talking. Can be very disconcerting and destracting. Have gotten used to it somewhat. Always figured it that was some recording machine in the office your calling doing that.

Oh okay thank you very much for the input on that .

Digital signals can be delayed especially over the internet. If someone is using a speaker phone the sound coming from the speaker in the phone can be picked up by the microphone. If the signal was delayed you will hear your own voice coming over your earpiece (after being transferred over the internet, delayed, reproduced on the remote speaker, then picked up by the remote microphone and being re-transmitted to you, again over the slow internet). If you call customer support in New York or California it may be rerouted to India over a satellite or over the internet. The round trip to a geo-syn satellite and back down to earth can be 6 seconds (it was with one satellite where I worked). That can also cause the same kind of delay.

If your microphone picks up the echo the whole thing may happen again and you get a second echo perhaps quieter. Any signal delay for any reason can cause this. If you hear it and it bothers you you can try calling back, you may get a cleaner / faster connection. It often helps if the person not speaking uses the mute feature, this turns off his or her microphone.
Some phones have advanced technology that can detect the echo and cancel it out. Getting a good headset (or just a "different" headset) can also help.

It all depends on if the problem is caused by your equipment or the person on the other end (or something in between).

For conference calls you can have many people on the line at once - it only takes one to make the echo. If you have ever been on a conference call where the leader says "everyone please mute" this is why. Using the conference call's "mute" is usually better than using the phone's "mute" because it eliminates more equipment. If my phone makes a "hum" on the line when I use its mute feature then everyone on the conference call can hear that - or if my phone drops the call and the carrier plays a recording that can end up on the conference call and everyone will here it. If I am using the conference call mute feature both of those things are eliminated.

Skype or Zoom (etc) can also cause this. Switching to a "real phone" might fix it.