Video calling quality: what affects it

Video calls expose every weakness in a network. Fortunately, most problems have simple causes.

Upload matters

Your video and voice travel up to the internet. A connection with little upload capacity produces blurry or frozen video for others.

Latency and jitter

Delay and variation in delay cause people to talk over each other and audio to break up. Stable connections matter more than raw speed.

Wi-Fi quality

Weak signal, congested channels and distance from the router are common causes. A cable to the desk often fixes problems instantly.

Competing traffic

Large downloads, cloud backups and streaming on the same connection can disrupt calls. Routers with quality-of-service features can prioritise call traffic.

Device performance

Older laptops struggle with video encoding; close unnecessary applications.

Audio equipment

A good headset improves audio quality more than most network changes and reduces echo.

Office networks

In offices, plan Wi-Fi capacity for meeting rooms and prioritise voice and video traffic.

See our connectivity services.