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From July 15, 2022, Zoom will have a 40-minute limit even for meetings with two participants if you have a free subscription. (Previously, it was only for meetings with 3 or more people.)
Companies and organizations using Zoom for business should consider switching to a paid license at this opportunity.
In addition to your home or office, Zoom offers opportunities to participate from various locations, such as rental spaces, seminar venues, and sometimes cafes and outdoors. Network connection may be affected depending on the environment and line used.
Let’s see what you can do if you get a network bandwidth warning.
Concept of network bandwidth in Zoom
What does “Low network bandwidth” mean in Zoom?
What is network bandwidth
The original meaning of the word “bandwidth” is the width of the frequency used for communication.
The difference between the highest frequency and the lowest frequency, expressed in units of “Hz (Hertz)”. The larger the width, the faster the communication speed.
On the other hand, recently there are cases where the word “bandwidth” is used to express the communication speed itself.
When referring to communication speed, “bps (bit per second)” is used as a unit, and the speed of the network is expressed as “amount of data that can be transferred per second”.
Recommended network bandwidth for Zoom meetings
How much network bandwidth is required for video conferencing with Zoom?
Zoom Support also has recommended bandwidth requirements under System Requirements.
| 1:1 video call | group video call | |
|---|---|---|
| high quality video | 600 kbps (up/down) | 1.0 Mbps / 600 kbps (up/down) |
| 720p HD video | 1.2 Mbps (up/down) | 2.6 Mbps / 1.8 Mbps (up/down) |
| 1080p HD video | 3.8 Mbps / 3.0 Mbps (up/down) | 3.8 Mbps / 3.0 Mbps (up/down) |
- Screen sharing only (no video thumbnail): 50-75 kbps
- For screen sharing with video thumbnails: 50-150 kbps
“High quality video” is the default video quality, and “720p” and “1080p” are the image quality that can be used with the paid license “group hd” function.
A speed of around 1.0Mbps is enough for a Zoom meeting with high-quality video.
What does “Network bandwidth is low” mean?
Zoom’s phrasing “Your network bandwidth is low” may seem confusing at first, but roughly speaking, it means “Your connection speed is lower than you need for your Zoom meeting.” .
Possibly, there may already be phenomena such as video or audio being interrupted, or the display being jerky.
When “Network bandwidth is low” is displayed, the connection is about to drop and you need to improve the network connection status.
How to improve when network bandwidth is low on Zoom
Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to improving network bandwidth issues with Zoom.
- Increase network speed
- Reduce Zoom data usage
Increase network speed
The network bandwidth problem is caused by the communication speed not meeting the bandwidth requirements for Zoom, so the fundamental solution is to “increase the communication speed”.
Release communication restrictions
If you exceed the amount of data communication for each plan set by the carrier, the communication limit will be applied and the internet communication speed will be slow.
The communication speed at the time of speed limit varies depending on each operator, but most are about 128 kbps to 200 kbps at maximum. It drops you completely short of Zoom’s bandwidth requirements.
To remove the speed limit, you can pay to purchase data traffic.
If you don’t want to spend a fortune, see if there are other networks available.
connect to wifi
If you are participating in Zoom from a smartphone, the communication speed may differ depending on the location and time. In such a case, if there is wifi nearby, try switching to wifi and the communication speed may improve.
The speed of wifi also varies depending on the line, but if it is an optical line, the speed will be quite high.
Check the placement of the wifi router
If there are obstacles or radio wave interference around the wifi router, the radio wave range will be narrowed or the radio waves will be interrupted.
Place it away from the floor in a place where there is no obstruction as much as possible.
Connect to wired LAN
Wireless connections are susceptible to the presence of obstacles and radio wave interference, but wired connections are less affected by surroundings and maintain a stable connection.
If you have a presentation that you can’t fail or an important interview, it’s safe to join Zoom from your home or office with a wired connection.
try another line
One of the causes of low network bandwidth is network failure.
If the network you are using is experiencing some sort of failure or is undergoing maintenance, it may take some time to recover. In such cases, one way to avoid this is to switch to another carrier’s network.
change place or time
Communication speed tends to be slow during times when access to the network is concentrated. Also, if the connection is slow only in a specific place, the line may be congested with many users.
To improve your network bandwidth, you can try changing the time you host your Zoom meeting or the location you attend.
Reduce Zoom data usage
To solve the network bandwidth problem and increase the communication speed, it may be necessary to improve the network connection status by changing the equipment or line, which may not be possible immediately.
There is also a way to change the way of thinking and reduce the communication volume of Zoom when “Network bandwidth is low” is displayed on Zoom.
This is to reduce the amount of data communication by stopping the use of functions with high communication among Zoom functions.
turn off video
If you have network bandwidth issues, switching to audio only will save a lot of data if you don’t need video in your meeting.
If you click “Stop Video” in the meeting controls during a Zoom meeting, your video image will be turned off.
switch to mini window
If you stop your own video, the amount of communication uploaded from here will decrease, but the process of downloading other participants’ videos will still occur.
There’s no way to hide other people’s videos, but you can actually minimize your data usage by minimizing the entire window.
Click the minimize “-” at the top right of the window for Windows or at the top left for mac to minimize the Zoom window.
If you want to return to the original size, click the mini window and select “Exit minimized video”.
disable group hd
If you have a paid account, you may have ‘group hd’ enabled which makes the video in hd quality.
Bandwidth requirements for group hd are for 720p
- 1 to 1 video call: 1.2Mbps (up/down)
- Group video call: 2.6Mbps / 1.8Mbps (up/down)
and has a higher network bandwidth than standard video.
If you have network bandwidth issues, disabling group hd can reduce traffic.
Even if group hd is enabled for each account/group, you can enable/disable only your meeting by following the steps below.
- Sign in to the Zoom web portal (https://zoom.us/).
- Click Settings.
- Disable it by toggling the switch off in the ‘Group hd’ option in the ‘Meetings’ tab.
If the communication situation does not improve, it may be caused by someone else’s line
If the network communication speed has been improved by the methods so far, I think that the “Network bandwidth is low” message will no longer appear on the Zoom screen.
However, if the sound or video is still interrupted on Zoom, it may be caused by a network other than yours.
How to check other people’s network status
The part of the name displayed in the lower left corner of someone else’s camera image in a Zoom meeting.
Next to the name, something like an icon representing the signal strength is displayed.
On mobile phones, etc., you can see the strength of the signal by the number of brightly displayed bars, but on Zoom, 5 bars are always displayed. Some of you may have thought.
In the case of Zoom, the color of this icon represents the radio wave status.
| icon color | signal strength |
|---|---|
| White | Good |
| yellow | rather bad |
| red | pretty bad |
If one of your participants has a red icon color, your network bandwidth may be low.
summary
- The term “network bandwidth” is used to describe communication speed.
- If “Network bandwidth is low” is displayed, the communication speed is low.
- A standard-definition Zoom meeting requires a bandwidth of about 1.0 Mbps
- To improve the network bandwidth problem, there are methods to increase the communication speed by reviewing the line, etc., and methods to limit the functions to reduce the communication volume.
The ‘Network bandwidth is low’ warning tells you that Zoom is about to lose communication.
If you have many opportunities to use Zoom meetings, it is safe to prepare the network environment on a daily basis.