Student’s latency fluctuates dramatically
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I have a student with whom connection is a real boondoggle: The latency is extremely volatile, hovering around 30 before spiking to 500+ over and over again. This renders my student’s sound intermittently robotic and inaudible. Why is this happening? it does not happen with other students.
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Hi Anne,
Thanks for your question! Here are starting suggestions, with explanations.
- Please ask the student to check that they’re using an Ethernet cable to connect from their computer to the router that receives the internet signal where it first enters the home (don’t connect the Ethernet cable to a wireless “repeater” or “extender” router; avoid Ethernet-over-power adapters). Wi-Fi typically introduces latency and instability, sometimes with hundreds-of-milliseconds spikes like you described. If the student plugs an Ethernet cable into a wireless repeater/extender router, they’re still communicating with the main home router through Wi-Fi, so they can still get latency spikes.
- Have the student turn Wi-Fi off on their computer. When their computer’s Wi-Fi stays on, their computer might still connect through Wi-Fi, even when their Ethernet cable is plugged in.
- Ask the student to make sure they’re using a fiber or cable internet connection, rather than a 5G/4G cellular connection. Cellular internet has caused poor connectivity for some users I’ve supported.
You can point your student to our Troubleshooting Guide. Have them use the “Change computer” and “Change audio” buttons to customize the tips. Then, they can browse the suggestions under “Latency is too high”.
Interested in how it goes,
David Liao
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