Over the last few months (well almost a year) we have become used to using Zoom, Meet and other video conferencing systems. For most the part these system seems to work without many issues but on most meetings there is the odd person who locks up or disappears sometimes never to return. So if your conference calls seem  to be littered with constant glitches maybe its time to take a look at your Internet connection.

In most cases the Internet links we have coming into our homes are  asymmetrical, that is the download speed, the speed at which we can pull pages or videos down onto our screens is not the same as the speed at which we can push keystrokes up to servers. This generally works well, you tap on a few keys and they get sent up to a service on the Internet and down comes a load of information or a video. But Zoom and the likes are different, you are sending pretty well as much as you receive and so the asymmetrical nature doesn't work so well.

There are various numbers on the web about just how fast your link needs to be to support a Zoom type product. Somewhere between 1mbs and 2mbs up and down seems to be the rough answer. For modern day broadband links these speeds are not much of a problem. The fibre networks that OpenReach install will typically have a download speed between 30 and 60 mbs and upload of 10 to 20mbs but not everybody has moved to these fibre networks. The non fibre networks are referred to as ADSL or ADSL2 and if you are still using one of these then the 2mbs upload speed required by Zoom might be more of a challenge. On a good day and if your house is located not too far from the Warblington Road exchange ADSL2 line can give an upload speed approaching 2mbs but this won't always be the case and the older ADSL is unlikely to reach 1mbs.

So if you have Zoom issues when nobody else seems to check your phone contract to see what type of line you have - it could be your problem. If you are on ADSL you can usually just be upgraded to ADSL2 (BT will have already done this but others may not) - it is just a matter of asking.