Video call dropouts

I am with Virgin media and in general I'm reasonably happy. However I am now working from home and find that every video call I have regularly drops either video or sound, or both and its now affecting work.

Doing a speed test tells me I'm getting around 90mb every time so I think the issue is more with the quality of the connection.

Can anyone tell me if the following quality test is normal, acceptable or if this could be the reason for my call drop out issues?

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

Many thanks

Have you tried plugging the computer in by a network cable to rule out wifi interference?

Which video conferencing tool is it, and are you connected to work via VPN or not?

When you say drop out, do you mean a stutter or that the entire video cuts off?

The level of yellow (jitter) is normal for a DOCSIS connection

If you are sending video/audio then its less about the download and more about upload. Also have you used an Ethernet connection to rule out Wi-Fi issues

Thanks for replying.

I'm not using Wifi, however my PC plugs into a switch which then goes off to an extender which in turn plugs into the router, all using ethernet cable. Altogether I'd say the total length of cable is around 30-40ft.

Using MS Teams, VPN is turned off.

Normally I loose sound and the video feed can often continue, but sometimes the video feed will freeze also. This typically lasts between 1-5 seconds at a time.

I have tried turning off the incoming video feed, as the sound is more important to me which I think does help a bit, but doesnt stop the issue completely.

Edited by TheGrovesy (Tue 20-Oct-20 09:56:12)

Are you able to check with other people in the meeting if they see your video feed freeze up at the same time? This might help isolate whether the issue is you. Is the freezing happening across multiple people or just one or two?

I use MS teams and find the video of others does often drop down to very poor quality or can freezes for a second or so if lots of people are on the video. I tend to find the issue happens even when two people have got decent enough connections, but obvious far more common when the other people are using ADSL or in a room with poor WiFi.

It might be worth trying another companies software to see if the same happens. The problem with video conferencing is that even with the best connection, best kit etc it still seems like it's never very stable.

Lastly, how often are these dropouts occurring. For example if it's every 10 mins or so, that could well be normal. However, if it's multiple times per minute then that is a concern.

I believe they see my feed freeze up at the same time. When it happens its all people and I get a banner across the top of Teams saying "Poor connectivity" type message.

Drop outs can be quite often, but irregular. For example i've just had a call where I turned off the receiving camera feed but even then the chat dropped out several times during the 30 minute call and at one point dropped in and out 3 times in the space of 30 seconds.

First tip is in a command prompt window leave a ping to your broadband router running ping 192.168.1.1 (the IP will vary depending on what the IP address of the web interface on your router is).

if this drops or shows massive swings in latency then points to the power plug network seeing some interference and speeds dropping periodically.

If that ping is good then in same window leave a ping running to a known good site on the internet. If that is all good and runs when you have froze it will show you connection is not the problem.

TheGrovesy

I think a significant number of these issues are caused by programs grabbing 100%CPU rather than being optimised for multi task use.

So check for online backups, (OneDrive, etc) these can have an effect as they start up as it may that the CPU on your PC slows down the feed and the app diagnoses this as a poor connection when it is not your BB but the CPU processing having a blip.

If you are working on a file at the same time this can affect as well as the auto back-up facility cuts in.

Turn off other online apps as well ( Skype/Zoom) as these can also have an effect. If running outlook on the PC turn off auto checking for new mail . Office 365 with documents in the cloud count as an online backup but this is difficult to control when using teams. Just make sure any office app you are going to use is open before the call.

Many thanks for your time. I'll give these suggestions a go.

@MrSaffron. Many thanks it does look like its my equipment that's the problem, I have only run the ping to the router for about 10 minutes and it sent 500 pings and only received 453 (9% loss).

The losses appear to be mainly request timed out but also I get several Destination net unreachable from a different IP (192.168.10.253) how does that happen? EDIT: this is the default address of the extender which makes sense.

The requests that did work have an average of 6ms. I assume this isn't too bad.

I'm going to bypass different pieces of equipment to find the culprit, but my money is on the cheap extender I am using.

UPDATE: Yes it was the extender. I am currently bypassing it with a switch and getting no packet losses, same average response time (6ms - Min 1sm, Max 15ms). Many thanks for your help.

Edited by TheGrovesy (Wed 21-Oct-20 09:45:36)

In reply to a post by TheGrovesy:

@MrSaffron. Many thanks it does look like its my equipment that's the problem, I have only run the ping to the router for about 10 minutes and it sent 500 pings and only received 453 (9% loss).

The losses appear to be mainly request timed out but also I get several Destination net unreachable from a different IP (192.168.10.253) how does that happen? EDIT: this is the default address of the extender which makes sense.

The requests that did work have an average of 6ms. I assume this isn't too bad.

I'm going to bypass different pieces of equipment to find the culprit, but my money is on the cheap extender I am using.

It sounds like the extender is the issue from what you've said.
If you had a cable direct from the PC you should get zero packet loss and an average ping time of less than or equal to 1ms