Enhance Your Video Conferencing Experience with Viasat Internet
At Viasat, we understand the importance of a smooth and reliable video conferencing experience. Whether you're connecting with family, friends, or colleagues, here are some practical tips to help you make the most of your video calls.
Prepare for Your Video Call
- Check Your Wi-Fi Connections: Before starting a video call, check the number of devices connected to your Wi-Fi. Reducing the number of connected devices can improve your call quality. Also, review your data usage and the included high-speed data in your plan to ensure you have enough data for your call.
- Device Compatibility: Ensure your device has a webcam and confirm that the person you’re calling has one as well. For services that require an app, you’ll need to install the necessary software and ensure the person you want to call is using the same app/service.
Optimize Your Call Quality
- Audio Options: Consider using a landline or cell phone for audio instead of your computer to prevent delays.
- Video Settings: Adjust the video quality settings within your conferencing tools. For example, in Zoom, you can enable or disable HD, and on the Webex website, you can adjust settings to optimize your call.
- Data Usage Monitoring: Monitor your data usage through My Viasat. This will help you avoid unexpected overages.
Reduce Data Consumption
- Audio-Only Mode: When data usage is a concern, turn off your video and use audio-only. This can significantly reduce the amount of data used during your call.
- Video Quality: Switch to Standard Definition (SD) instead of High Definition (HD) to save data. For example, Skype recommends at least 1.5 Mbps download and upload speeds for HD video-chat and you can still enjoy a clear call with lower video settings.
- Screen Sharing: Avoid screen sharing when possible, as it can consume a lot of data. Instead, use collaborative tools like Google Docs to share and edit documents in real-time.
- Limit Other Activities: During video calls, limit other data-heavy activities such as streaming videos or downloading large files. This will help ensure a smoother and more stable connection.
Additional Tips
- Call Details: For FaceTime users, you can see how much data you used by checking the details after the call. This is available by tapping the info icon on each call, which you can find under the “Recents” screen within FaceTime.
- Choose the Right Tool: Select a video conferencing tool that best fits your data limits and bandwidth. Viasat Internet has more than adequate speed for popular video chat services, and even at the higher 3.0 MB per minute data usage, you’d have to use it for 5.5 hours to reach 1 GB of data.
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