This topic

Facetime calls poor quality

pwright2022 — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 11:15:23 GMT

Hi,

I have BT Whole home wifi (Smart Hub2 + 3 Whole Home wifi discs). It works perfectly for everything except Facetime on an iPhone (XR and SE2).

Speed tests come back as expected (63Mbps Down, 17.5Mbps Up), jitter = 1ms, and ping 14ms.

This is the same whatever disc I am on, I can walk between the discs, they all are with Good Connection and 5Ghz band.

The wifi on the smart hub is turned off to avoid conflict.

But when we use facetime to someone else, it can (not always) be jittery, broken or plain unusable. Yet I can run a speed test and get those figures above!

I've turned off Band Steering on the discs, but left AP Steering on. I've checked the 2.4 & 5Ghz bands are relatively clear. And it doesn't seem to matter what time of day or night it is either.

Any advice please?

Thanks

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

licquorice — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 11:18:56 GMT

Have you considered the fault may be at the distant end or with the facetime servers?

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

pwright2022 — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 11:22:22 GMT

Hi, no, as if we drop our phones to back mobile data only (ie 3/4g) it's perfect.

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

Les-Gibson — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 11:36:26 GMT

Have you tried switching the whole-home system off and the hub Wi-Fi back on? that should enable you to identify which of the two (if either) is letting you down

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

pwright2022 — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:56:48 GMT

Hi,

Definitely the Hub or Broadband.

Over the last few days, I've connected to the hub directly by using its Wifi. The same results, drop out, more so the sending picture/voice, as they cannot often hear or see us, but the received picture is pixelated.

Drop back to 4G (ie turn off the phone`s wifi) and it's perfect. Thus ruling out their end.

We've just watched the whole of the funeral on iPlayer over wifi without a single drop out. So it has to be some sort of conflict with Facetime and the Smart Hub 2/Broadband?

Thanks.

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

Les-Gibson — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 17:21:04 GMT

Try re-installing the Facetime app and/or using a different video calling app such as Google Meet to see if it's an app problem

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

pwright2022 — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 17:32:36 GMT

Sorry but it's on 2 different phones.

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

Les-Gibson — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 18:20:57 GMT

No harm in trying and you won't know until you do

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

pwright2022 — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 07:03:48 GMT

Hi,

I am at the end here, what else can we do?

I've now had someone round on a brand new iPhone 14 and their facetime was horrendous too. Just kept dropping out, yet again when on their mobile network providor, perfect.

We've streamed HD TV to the BT Vision box and to the TV directly over WIFI without a single glitch or missed frame.

The only option left is a problem with the BT service/Router (as we've ruled out the discs by connecting direct to the router). But if i do speed tests it's perfect too; 66/17Mbps, 15ms ping, 87ms jitter.

Thanks for any further advice.

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

Les-Gibson — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 08:11:25 GMT

Have you tried a factory reset of the router, be advised that you should backup your configuration first and restore it when the hub restarts otherwise your discs won't work (assuming they're the black ones, the white ones will work without taking this step)

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

pwright2022 — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 15:55:38 GMT

Hi,

I did that 2 weeks ago, still no joy.

Thanks

Re: Facetime calls poor quality

pwright2022 — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 16:25:53 GMT

I think I've had a discovery. The jitter on the iPhone is very hgh on Wifi.

I've got a new smart hub 2, set it up and had nothing else connected but the 5Ghz band right next to the phone and these are the result. On the PC it`s 8ms Jitter.