Never before have we all embraced (sort of) video conferencing. It has become the new normal and a daily part of our lives. Whether it’s Zoom, Google Meet, or something else we have all from time to time experienced issues of a lagging video feed or choppy audio.

What can you do to reduce or eliminate these issues?

First and foremost make sure your software is up to date. Zoom regularly pushes out updates to fix issues and for others that work within a browser make sure your browser is utilizing the latest build. Most browsers these days are built on Chromium which includes Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, and Comodo Dragon. Chromium is updated every 4 weeks and some browsers may publish patches in between.

Second if possible make sure your computer is hard-wired into your router. While we love being wireless it’s hard to beat the speed and reliability of a hard-wired connection.

If you must use wireless keep in mind that most routers are using 2 bands, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Without getting too technical 2.4 GHz has been utilized longer and by more devices. It can broadcast further as well. This sounds great until you realize that this causes more interference with your devices and neighbors.

While 5 Ghz does not broadcast as far this can be a benefit when it comes to reducing interference from devices in your neighborhood. Keep in mind with all wireless connections that speed will be determined by the technology both devices support and the distance from the router.

Now we might think of 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz as 2 channels, but these are broken up into subchannels. Most devices will allow you then to pick a channel. Why would you do that? Well out of the box, most devices are set to the same default channel! So changing to a channel with fewer devices on it means less interference and a more reliable connection.

Newer routers today have the ability to optimize and select open channels. Otherwise, you may want to search for an app like Wifi Analyzer on your phone that shows you all the wifi signals your phone is picking up, what channel they are broadcasting on, and their signal strength. This might take some trial and error as you test different parts of your home or office as one side of the building can be very different than the other.

My final piece of advice is to keep your hardware updated with the latest firmware and drivers. Your router should have a “check for updates” feature to periodically see if something has been fixed or improved. Also, your computer and devices should have updates to their drivers. While some manufacturers are good with this if you own a windows computer it may be worth looking into a dedicated driver update utility rather than relying on windows updates.

While you can’t control how others connect to a video conference, these tips should improve your connection and reduce issues.