topic Re: Irritating hangs on Zoom in Full Fibre

Irritating hangs on Zoom

Ernesto — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 12:43:54 GMT

Three months ago I had this problem. Plusnet's efforts did lead to some improvement but the problem never really went away and now it is rather frustrating.

I have Plusnet unlimited fibre extra, and I get an average download speed of 32 mbits/s but with large fluctuations at peak hours of the day. This is not a problem with general use and video streaming (when there is buffering available) but with Zoom (and maybe also Teams as well; I am shortly to test that) the frequent short duration speed drops (about once or twice a minute for a few seconds) cause hanging of sound and video, with onscreen messages of ‘your internet connection is unstable’. It seems to be my connection that causes it because other people on a zoom call see me hang whilst they are still able to communicate with each other ok. Sunday 13 Feb at 6pm I tried repeatedly running the BT speed tester during a zoom call and saw fluctuations down to 10 mbit/s. Upload speeds don’t seem to be so variable.

I have a Hub1 router/modem with WiFi switched off, and a separate Decomesh for WiFi. I am experiencing these problems with a Win10 computer hard-wired via ethernet cable to the router. On the computer the WiFi is switched off and ethernet is the only connection from the computer to the router. A graphic of download speed from Sam Knows over the past month shows a 32 mbit/s average but with small fluctuations. The small fluctuations presumably are a result of data smoothing (each plotted point at 24 hour intervals seems to be an average of 12 measurements) and I suspect do not reflect the large short-time fluctuations that I infer occur, and which would presumably cause a Zoom hang.

Is there any way out of this?

Re: Irritating hangs on Zoom

Baldrick1 — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 13:46:58 GMT

@Ernesto Welcome to the forum.

The very first question is why you are on fibre extra with a 32Mbps download speed? What are your estimated spped if you put your phone number in here? https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

This will determine whether you have a more fundamental problem.

Re: Irritating hangs on Zoom

Ernesto — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 16:25:47 GMT

Thankyou for your response, Baldrick1. I tried the BT line checker a per your advice. Most of the terms are unfamiliar to me, but on the observed speeds line it gives 35 and 7.5 mbit/s, which is pretty much what I have been observing. Max figures shown are 55 and 11 respectively. I suppose that is at the cabinet? Any further advice on how to proceed?

Re: Irritating hangs on Zoom

SammyM — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 20:23:23 GMT

Hiya @Ernesto,

I really sorry to hear you are having these issues and for any frustrations this is causing.

I have checked the line and I can see the speed has been banded at 35Mps. Further testing has located an issue at the exchange which I have raised to our suppliers.

I have provided more detail here and our faults team will keep you updated.