Anyone have trouble with Video calls and the connection dropping out- Unlimited Fibre Extra

[#1]

Our Broadband works fine but I dont feel the speed I get comes near the average speed quoted on here of up to 66mbps. 

I am getting slightly above the minimum that Plusnet advise I will get, but I am sure it used to be better at our property.

So I live in a very small Bungalow and often me and the Wife work from home in a spare bedroom. We find that when on a Zoom or Teams call often people complain that we are freezing and we get a warning our connection is unstable. We used to find the bars for Wifi had gone down to about 3 in the bedroom so we have invested in a Wifi Extender and now we have full bars but the issue on Zoom is still happening. 

I can online game and never have any issues with Internet Connection other than having Video Calls. Plusnet have done checks on the line and advised the Router is receiving the signal fine but are sending me a new Router anyway as ours is 3 years old. The speeds I am getting:

Download between 25-30mbps

Upload between 5-8

Ping between 14-18 but can sometimes be as much as 50

My issue is I understand the speeds differ between off peak and on peak but ours seems to be always the same at different times of day. Would you expect it to be better, we used to get download speeds of about 40. Any advice regarding video calls would be greatly received. The Wife wants to move to a certain Cable company which I would rather not as always been happy with the service.

Many thanks
Andrew 

[#2]

@and107 I can't comment on the video calls question - not something I have ever used/experienced, but  your speed seems a little low. Can you post your current Technical Log>Information page please, redacting personal data. This assumes you have a Hub2.

[#3]

Hi John,

Thank you for coming back to me,

Would you help me with where I get this information from,

I assume you mean I need to log into the Hub to get this information, I have screen shots from various days of the BT Wholesale Speed Test but can provide additional information.

A BT Engineer did come to the property once before and mentioned the wiring on the outside of the house was the old wiring they dont use anymore, bit did advise if it aint broke they wont fix it as the signal is being received.

Thanks
Andrew 

[#4]

Yes, the data required is from the Hub. Log into it, and navigate to this page:

[#5]

Thanks will send at lunchtime as not at home at the moment

[#6]

I have added as an attachment hopefully this will work

Many thanks

Andrew

Moderator's note:
Personal information in attachment removed from a public forum (to an area that staff can see).

[#7]

I used to have problems with video calls (Zoom, Teams, Hangouts, etc.) when I had a slow upload.

I also couldn't stream iplayer on my smart LG TV even though the download speed of ~10Mbps was more than the 3-4Mbps iplayer needed.

It seems that one issue is that many streaming & video services like to use quite large packet sizes to reduce the overheads. In the case of my TV it waited until its buffer was nearly empty (maybe 5-10 seconds left) before asking for the next packet - which on a fast connection would have arrived in time, but on a slow connection wasn't ready when it was needed.

With a video call the traffic is more symmetric - so it takes longer for your computer to send a packet on a slow connection than the software expects, leading to stuttering or video freezing.

The only fix is to either switch your video off - the voice should be OK, as should the incoming video - or get a better broadband connection. I now have a symmetric 600Mbps connection, and don't have any video freezing issues 🙂

You could always try 4G if you have a decent signal - using that just for video calls wouldn't need a vast monthly data allowance.

[#8]

@and107 Thanks - that is useful, but raises a couple of questions: (1) do you still have a phone service connected? (2) As I assume you don't turn the Hub off, it appears you are losing DSL connection, have noticed in the last 3 or 4 days any change in the Hubs light colour?

[#9]

@corringham Can I leave the Zoom side to you - it is something I  know nothing about?

[#10]

Hi,

Yes it is connected via the Phone line into the BT wallsocket but we dont have a landline that is used. We did think that as these arent being used for broadband any longer. We dont turn the hub off opther than restarting it which is what we were advised to do when reporting the original issue at the weekend.

Many thanks
Andrew 

[#11]

Cheers Andrew, so you have a standard broadband connection and what appears to be a fairly stable one, which knocks a couple of my thoughts out - oh well. 😀

I appreciate that you also appear to have a longish length of copper in your circuit which will  slow things down - just out of interest, are you on the 'Fibre' or 'Fibre Extra' product?

Other than that, I am tempted to leave this alone and let others with more knowledge investigate your Zoom issue.

[#12]

Hi John,

The length of Copper then that would be a big indicator, We are on the unlimited Fibre Extra product which from looking around seems to be the best connection we can get at this property without changing to cable broadband.

I do know the Engineer did note the wiring going into the property is the old copper wire which they dont use anymore, but whilst it works they would not be willing to change it.

Doesnt help when you are wanting to work from home

Many thanks

Andrew

[#13]

One last favour please. Can you post a screenshot of this page: BT Broadband , but obscure your phone number please

[#14]

It doesn't seem to be available at the moment. I will keep trying

[#15]

OK