A lot of people in Marin, Sonoma, and Napa work from a spare bedroom, a converted garage, or a desk by the kitchen window, and the connection they notice most is the one during a video call. A slow download shows up as a spinning wheel. A weak video call shows up as you, frozen, in front of your team. Here is what a call actually asks of your internet, and how to set up a home office around it.
Upload matters, and steady matters more
Most internet plans are sold on the download number, and most of what a household does is download: streaming, browsing, updates. A video call is different. You are sending video and audio out at the same time you are receiving it, so the upload side of your connection matters as much as the download side.
The numbers involved are smaller than people expect. Per Zoom's published system requirements, an HD call needs a few megabits per second in each direction, a little more for a 1080p call, and screen sharing on its own asks for far less. The catch is that those numbers have to be there, steadily, for the whole hour, while the rest of the house does whatever it is doing.
A video call cares less about the peak of your connection and more about the floor. Video is a stream of frames arriving on a schedule. If the frames arrive late, or the delay between the two ends wobbles from second to second, you get the familiar symptoms: a voice that stutters, a face that freezes, and a half-second pause where two people start talking at once.
That is why, during a site survey, we look at signal quality and not just whether a signal reaches you. It is also why the 99.9% uptime guarantee in your agreement is measured at the rooftop antenna, the point where the connection we deliver ends and your home network begins. WebPerception internet has no data caps, no throttling, and no usage-based overage charges, so a long day of back-to-back calls does not change your bill or your connection.
Wire the work laptop
Internet and WiFi are two different systems. The connection arrives at your router over an Ethernet cable. WiFi carries it through the house, and walls, distance, and where the router sits all affect it. For the calls that matter, a wired connection at your desk removes WiFi from the equation.
- If the desk is near the router, one Ethernet cable does it. Many laptops need a small USB adapter for the port.
- If the desk is across the house, a longer cable run to the desk, or a wired access point in the room, is a modest project we do often.
- If wiring is not practical, put the work laptop on the 5 GHz band with as few walls as possible between it and the router. Our WiFi optimization guide covers placement.
Tell us where the desk is when you ask about service; it tells us whether a wired connection is practical and where WiFi needs to reach.
VPNs and your employer's rules
A VPN runs over our connection like any other application. It carries your traffic to your company's network, and the video call rides inside it or alongside it depending on how your IT department set things up. Some employers have rules about VPNs, equipment, or which apps run on the work laptop. Share them when you contact us and we will talk through them. If a call is fine off the VPN and rough on it, that is useful information for your IT team, and for us.
A quiet-hours habit for the household
Everyone in the house shares one connection. School, streaming, another person on a call, and a console pulling a game update all take a piece of it. A stream can buffer ahead. A live call cannot, so it notices the crowding first.
A few habits that cost nothing:
- Schedule cloud backups and photo uploads for overnight rather than letting them run whenever they like.
- Ask the household to hold big downloads and game updates during your standing meetings.
- Keep the microwave and the router apart. A running microwave can stall a video call in the next room on the 2.4 GHz band.
- If a call goes bad, glance at what else is running before blaming the connection. Then, if a wired test is low, work through the slow speeds guide and call us.
What to do
- Find out where your desk is relative to the router, and wire it if you can.
- Put the work laptop on 5 GHz if it stays on WiFi.
- Move backups and big updates out of your meeting hours.
- Note your employer's VPN or equipment rules and tell us about them.
- If calls are rough on a wire, call or text (415) 892-7711. Phone support and network monitoring are available 24/7/365, and we can see the link to your antenna from our side. Office and sales hours are Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM Pacific.
Jenny R. of Petaluma wrote in a Yelp review: "We made the move to a rural part of Petaluma without doing our due diligence on available Internet service. My husband and I rely on good internet to do our jobs and with the pandemic we've also got online schooling to attend to." That is the household we plan for: two people working, kids in class, and a connection that has to hold through all of it.
Our remote work and home office pages cover what we ask when you contact us and how we match a connection to the way you work. Ready to see whether we can reach your address? Check availability, contact us, or call or text (415) 892-7711.
