Evaluating Network Quality

Identifying and troubleshooting network problems
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Written by Stasia
Updated 1 year ago

Most of us have experienced poor quality issues at least once while on the air - when the camera image becomes blurry and audio gets the robotic effect. This is super frustrating since the issue affects not only the broadcast itself but also the host's reputation.

When it comes to troubleshooting, the biggest challenge begins. Broadcasting is a complex process that is influenced by a lot of factors so you never know where to start. However, experience shows that most of the time, what causes these problems is connection.

How to check network quality

From the production studio, you will see the following indicator that is sensitive to network environment changes. It uses a complex algorithm that ingests network data and computes a score every 2 seconds. Degradation of available bandwidth, packet loss, or network jitter may reduce the quality of your camera image. 

This scale goes from 5 (very good) to 1 (extremely poor). Let's have a closer look at each level separately. 

The Network Quality Level is not an absolute metric but a score relative to what you are demanding from the network. For example, your Quality Level can be 5 while you are communicating low-quality video but it drops to 1 as soon as you change the video to be HD even if the network does not change at all in the process.

Solutions

1. Use a wired connection
Wi-Fi is obviously more convenient than wired Ethernet cables, but Ethernet still offers a more stable connection.

2. Run a test

We cannot give you a strict upload speed at which everything will work perfectly, but we do recommend to try with a minimum of 3 Mbps (3000 kBits/sec).

Check your Internet speed here: https://networktest.twilio.com 

3. Try off-peak hours
If you’re on a public or shared Internet connection, you may experience slow internet during early evenings and weekends.

4. Close all unnecessary tabs and background applications
This will not only free up space for new pages but also prevent you from running out of memory.

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