Microsoft Teams Quality Issue

[QuantumPhys]

Hello all,

I've got an odd issue which I'm hoping someone can offer a steer on.

I have the EE 1.6 Gb Full Fibre Busiest Home package with a Smart Hub Plus.

All seemed to be working fine until my original Smart Hub Plus failed in Jan 2025. This was attributed to a bad firmware update, and a new hub was sent out. I connected this up and again everything appeared to be ok, until colleagues at work started complaining that my video during MS Teams calls was regularly freezing. On my end, I didn't see any issues - I could see and hear everyone else fine so it came as a surprise. Setting up a test meeting that just included me, I recorded myself and when playing back immediately found that the video and audio both freeze and stutter. This is readily reproducible, although sometimes the performance is extremely bad with the video completely frozen. Strangely, this only affects the MS Teams desktop app, with connections via the web browser still being good quality.

So far, everything else seems ok - stable and fast connection (getting around 1.6 Gbps routinely).

Here's what I've tried so far:

• Updated Teams and all drivers on laptop.
• Direct cable connection to router with WiFi turned off and all other devices disconnected. No difference.
• Laptop on WiFi on corporate network - absolutely fine, no surprise.
• Laptop on WiFi in various coffee shops and on friend's home broadband - all much slower connections than mine and Teams is absolutely fine. Often extremely good.
• Used phone as 4G hotspot - absolutely fine - extremely good video and audio.
• Replaced the Smart Hub Plus with an old Asus router I used with a previous ISP - connected to ONT. Connects via PPPoE fine with reasonable speed (around 750 Mbps although using 2.5G port as WAN port, so a little surprised it's not faster).  Connection appears very stable and no obvious issues shown by ThinkBroadband BQM. However, Teams behaves exactly the same as with the EE router - terrible video and audio.
• Configured Hotspot VPN on Asus router - set location to South England. Connection speed is around 100 Mbps. However, Teams now works absolutely fine. Very good audio and video. Turned off VPN - fast connection restored and Teams video and audio revert to being terrible.

This suggests to me it might be some network infrastructure issue, rather than a problem with the Smart Hub Plus or with the laptop / Teams. Could the route the traffic is following make a difference? If so, how would I go about pinpointing this? The Microsoft 365 connectivity tests don't flag up anything obvious.

After much testing to convince myself there was an issue with the connection I called EE and an engineer visited. He indicated there had been some problems with the Smart Hub Plus on fast connections, tried to run a series of tests but these didn't complete. Reason unclear. However, he was confident that the new Smart Hub Pro would resolve the issues although he wasn't allowed to issue one himself.

Engineer left, job appeared to be closed, then I got a message from OpenReach asking me to arrange a call so that equipment could be delivered. I did, got put through to EE, with the guide saying that I really should have had the Smart Hub Pro already and that he'd get one sent out, although the process for doing this was very difficult. That was almost a couple of weeks ago. Being concerned this wasn't being progressed I got back in touch - over multiple calls now, once I get past the agent telling me I've got a very fast connection and they can't see an issue or find open jobs, when they review previous notes there's a record somewhere to an order being placed, but no-one can find out what. It appears I'm now down as a new customer and something needs to be progressed by the "New IT" team, even though I've been with EE for over a year.

So, perhaps a Smart Hub Pro will be sent out, which will be good because it sounds like I'm entitled to one on my package.

However, I'm not convinced the hub itself is the issue, given that the Asus router performs similarly, except when a VPN is active.

Does anyone have any thoughts about what might be happening?

Thanks!

 

[Vish87]

Hi, did you manage to resolve this? I have the same issue and I used a new router Deco xe75 and connected it directly to the ONT.

Used PPOE but the only way teams video calls and screen sharing work is if I link my deco to nord vpn and activate the connection to my laptop?

its so weird and I don’t want to give customer services a call as I fear I’ll be dragged around in circles 

[TraderTravel]

Unless you call EE Customer Services, they won’t know you are experiencing an issue with Teams. My suggestion is to give them a call. Based on this thread alone, it seems at least they are aware of problems.

[Tryfan_Tamer]

Good Afternoon, all 

This is going to be a long response but an important one.  As you can see from my previous messages I've also experienced the issue with Teams/Zoom & Webex calls being really poor when moving from BT to EE.  I work for an Analytics company that specialize in Teams data so ran the software against my calls and found that I was seeing High Audio Packet Loss, High Video Packet Loss which all points to the network being unable to handle the packets properly. 

Looking at this data, I hadn't had a single issue at home until 9th June when I moved to EE, since that date nearly all my Teams calls were affected. 

Speed testing with FAST or similar showed everything was fine (950 down, 110 Up).  Even Microsoft's own testing APP came back clear but when I joined calls everyone was saying how bad my voice/video was & often sharing screen didn't work or my video didn't appear at all!  I could easily prove this by running a "Meet Now" meeting and recording myself which proved how bad it was. 

Logged the issue with EE several times, had an engineer out and everything but no changes to the service.  I work from home in a Sales capacity & this was now causing me major grief!

Finally managed yesterday to get hold of a very helpful man who agreed to send me out an old BT Smart Hub .  Installed this morning and I've run several "Meet now" tests and tests with colleagues and the problem has totally disappeared. 

So, my belief is the EE Smart Hub SH32B is the issue.  What I think might be happening is that the Smart Hub is trying to honor QOS markings from Teams/Zoom/Webex and somehow completely messing it up.  Older routers don't do this & that seems to be a good thing in this instance. 

So, that's my formal update.  Do with it what you will. 

[Vish87]

Seems to be an issue with any router thats been in the market for recently. I switched to the DECO XE75 and the issue still persists.

Gave EE customer services a call and they have logged a ticket with this forum as a reference to figure out what is going on.

Fingers crossed they do something about it.

[TMorphy]

Thanks Tryfan for the detailed email,     I totally agree thats sounds QOS thing.

I never got a callback from EE on registering this issue 2nd time. 

Remember asking the tech support to strip all off the line - parental controls and any layer 7 filtering. So had the same replacement for router (power issue). about a month and same issue is there.   It’s shame the didn’t sent they new WiFi 7 router for me to test.     A friend of mine had excellently same power issue the other day,  but the only sent him power plug not a new router. 

Not sure, if i mention in previous post,  that i had BT open reach engineer ages ago  and we both tested the line using ethernet.      The physical line was ok,  but virtual circuit came back as inconclusive.   As BT only responsible  for the physical infrastructure.    Originally when the replaced my NTE to 2.5GIG from 1 gig one for 1.6 from 900mb BB.     The BT engineer was here for 4 hours and really struggled to get it working.     

 I’m thinking one just renewing this March with 300mb offering,  opposed to the 1.6 Gig offering. 

My work laptop still works perfect on office WiFi and teams on my ZEN 300mb BB Fritz router. 

Sorry I went on a bit of rant here. 

Thanks

Tom 

[MCA4]

Did you ever get this sorted??
We have the same issues and Ive spent hours on the phone to "Technical"

Have a 900mb download & 109 upload and teams constantly freezes.
New Ethernet cable plugged directly into the router from the laptop.

We have to use our hotspot on our phone to use teams.