Packet loss? Dropping in/out of voice calls

[Andeh1]

Joys of working from home.....

I have regular issues where my voice cuts in and out of calls. I don't notice it, but others do.

When I hear other people/see their videos all works fine.

I have 80% signal strength from my WIFI, playing games etc has never been an issue, no issues with websites or general internet speed.


Could this be packet loss? Any ideas on what could cause it, or how I could go about resolving it? I am toying with the idea of butchering the place to route a cable, but WIFI would be preferential fi there is a way of solving it or testing for it.

Thanks,

[sjg]

What platform are you using? Zoom lets you see stats during a call: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/20292071... . Others (like Teams, Webex, etc) you might have to get your IT folks to look up stats from your recent calls.

Worth ruling out your wifi if you can - do some calls a lot closer to the router, or plug in if you can.

If it's just your voice dropping, worth trying a different device. In SfB/Teams admins can get stats on mic "glitches" (ie where the computer loses connection briefly). We see it a lot with bluetooth devices paired direct to the PC rather than using the dongle they came with, particularly where you've got corporate laptops that never see bluetooth driver updates, and often where people are using a bluetooth mouse or other devices as well. Can get it too with USB docking stations. Try a wired headset directly in a PC port and see if it repeats, if not get everything updated (device firmware, PC drivers, etc) and it usually goes away.

[xeny]

Andeh1 said:

Could this be packet loss? Any ideas on what could cause it, or how I could go about resolving it? I am toying with the idea of butchering the place to route a cable, but WIFI would be preferential fi there is a way of solving it or testing for it.

You could try throwing money at mesh or try powerline, but before you spend anything, checked for the possible issues in (4) of https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-inter... .

packetlosstest.com looks potentially very useful for assessing this kind of problem, but I've not yet had the opportunity to try it on a troublesome connection - it may at least show if you're seeing periodic significant packet delays.

[camel_landy]

It might not be packet loss but simply contention / congestion. The packets themselves will be getting through but because they're delayed, you end up with the dropouts.

Unfortunately, there's more to a decent broadband connection that just maximum speed as latency and contention ratio make a big difference too.

Before you launch into swapping the Wifi around, are you able to get your computer cabled directly to the router? That way, you'll be able to see if the problem is due to the Wifi or your broadband connection.

M

[dmsims]

What is your upload speed ?

[fat80b]

Do you have a work VPN connected ?

Ive seen several cases of exactly what you describe where the traffic going over the vpn causes this issue.

Disable the vpn for the duration of the call and the problem goes away

[TimmyMallett]

fat80b said:

Do you have a work VPN connected ?

Ive seen several cases of exactly what you describe where the traffic going over the vpn causes this issue.

Disable the vpn for the duration of the call and the problem goes away

That. Do a speedtest via vpn and the one without (on your phone if your work laptop only operates via VPN). See how much you get throttled, and see the speed when you're getting issues and then see if the dirty speed is much higher.

[hotchy]

When I have packet loss my online games suffered more than anything. Go to shoot... I'd appear 5m away and the guys gone shooting where I was yet a ping of 30... the problem was water ingress in the garden cable that needed replaced. Yours sounds like dodgy WiFi like my xbox would get until I used ethernet cable. The xbox is 10cm away from router for distance btw

[FunkyNige]

My wife had similar and her IT department sent her a separate USB microphone that she now uses and the problem has gone away.
Are you using a headset type setup or just talking into the laptop and hearing the others via that too?

[Andeh1]

Thanks all

It's Microsoft teams, I've raised it with our IT team, see what they suggest. Their first suggestion of clearing the teams cache doesnt give me much hope...

With/without VPN the issue persists.

With/without headset, laptop mic... Still an issue.

Online gaming, Inc FPS like call of duty there are no issues.

I will try and run a cable for a while to test that option and/or powerline adapter type solution.

Thanks very much guys

[Captain_Morgan]

You could also try running a continuous ping while on a teams call this should indicate if you are suffering from packet loss.

I might well redirect the output to a log file so you can compare a few calls

https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/tools/...

I’d ping to Google’s dns server 8.8.8.8 as a test

[xeny]

Captain_Morgan said:

You could also try running a continuous ping while on a teams call this should indicate if you are suffering from packet loss.

I might well redirect the output to a log file so you can compare a few calls

https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/tools/...

I’d ping to Google’s dns server 8.8.8.8 as a test

I do two - one to the IP address of the router, one to a remote site (I use news.bbc.co.uk as 8.8.8.8 is anycast) and one to the household broadband router - if you start them pretty much in sync you know if the issue is inside the house or outside when you look at the log files.

[Captain_Morgan]

xeny said:

I do two - one to the IP address of the router, one to a remote site (I use news.bbc.co.uk as 8.8.8.8 is anycast) and one to the household broadband router - if you start them pretty much in sync you know if the issue is inside the house or outside when you look at the log files.

Good call.

Would you not need to run a traceroute though to confirm if the packets are being dropped by your router or outside?