4G internet dongle work from home problem

[Dieselboy]

On of my guys are working from home with a 4G dongle. Given everyone is doing the same, he's getting H+ speeds. I googled for "how to improve 4g reception" and found a few check points for him. But I fear that the issue is rather cell-tower congestion rather than reception quality.

Wanted to mention here - is there any other things we can do? Even with an empty dish washing liquid bottle, an empty toilet-roll cardboard tube and some aluminium foil?

[deanwebb]

Place signal jammers near other buildings in the area? Of course, that may be illegal in some jurisdictions. And by "some", I mean "most, if not all."

[Dieselboy]

Yea so nothing we can do then

What I see is, Cisco Webex (Teams) holds up pretty good to the packet loss but the packet loss recovery mechanism on the codec is reducing the volume to an inaudiable level - even though the voice is not breaking and is clear. We have to set our volume to max level and even then, I had to hold my head next to the laptop to hear him. Webex was using the Opus codec but maybe they changed it recently ?

[Otanx]

Is there a difference between WebEx and WebEx Teams? With WebEx I just have it call my phone for meetings. The PC is just for slides/screen share.

-Otanx

[deanwebb]

We're using Zoom. US callers sound fine, UK callers have wildly varying voice quality.

[Otanx]

We're using Zoom. US callers sound fine, UK callers have wildly varying voice quality.

It's called an accent.

-Otanx

[deanwebb]

We're using Zoom. US callers sound fine, UK callers have wildly varying voice quality.

It's called an accent.

-Otanx

[Dieselboy]

Is there a difference between WebEx and WebEx Teams? With WebEx I just have it call my phone for meetings. The PC is just for slides/screen share.

-Otanx

That;s what I set up for him yesterday - but as he's in Sri Lanka and webex are not in sri lanka there is no call me option for there. I ended up forwarding one of our Australian numbers through to his SL number so he can use an australian call me number. There's a bit of delay though...

We're using Zoom. US callers sound fine, UK callers have wildly varying voice quality.

transcoding of codec ? Zoom could be using their backend to mux the streams and due to the distance, have opted for g729 or something which is simply no good these days. Need to use something like Opus which is designed for internet calling.

When I call from my Australian mobile to my grandma's mobile in UK the quality is pretty crap - can hear fine but the clarity is crap. Same for her. If I hang up then call her landline number then it's much much clearer. I think the reason is similar - codec or transcoding symptoms.

[icecream-guy]

Otanx,  you talking about Microsoft Teams?

[Otanx]

It was a question for Dieselboy from his comment above where he references "WebEx (Teams)" I wasn't sure if this was a rebranding, or different product than normal WebEx. I am familiar with Microsoft Teams. As mater of fact yesterday my wife's company had their first shirtless participant to a all hands meeting on Teams. I guess he didn't realize the video was on by default. Someone had to tell him to turn off the camera.

Way off topic but I think it is cool to see all these people figuring out the collaboration tools. One of the organizations my wife is a member of has a 101 year old lady that got on the Zoom meeting they had instead of the normal meeting. My mom, who is in her 70s, had a Zoom meeting for a class she is taking. She had never heard of it before last week. Now if I have questions on Zoom I ask my mom. I mentioned in another thread a coworker has a son, and the local schools are using Zoom to teach. Imagine 30 8 years old in a zoom meeting.

-Otanx

[Dieselboy]

Sorry Otanx I completely missed it and just saw it now and went to reply. Webex meetings and Webex teams will eventually just be webex. Webex teams is a chat app. a bit like Jabber or microsoft teams. And there's a separate webex meetings app. With webex meetings you get a virtual meeting room-like experience, guests can join these meetings just by going to the link. With teams it's app-driven and the app connects to the virtual meeting room. I dont know how it will eventually go, but you get more control as a host with webex meetings and as a guest, i think they would need to sign up to a free webex teams account to be able to use the app and then join the meeting; so if they are someone like an interview candidate then I dont see the worth of making an account and using webex teams - just join as a guest one-off.


The company I work for (Cinglevue.com) has been developing remote learning systems and we're due to release it very soon. We have integrated webex into the system to allow remote learning and communication between students / teachers. The platform has many components. This time has allowed a huge realisation that remote learning is needed - but the concern is that companies will knee-jerk on this and do it poorly. Whereas we've been working on this for over 8 years.

[Otanx]

Ah, ok. So reading your answer I was like that sounds like Spark. Googled it, and yep. They rebranded Spark to WebEx Teams. Like you said it looks like a merging of all their collaboration. Now it makes sense. Thank you,

-Otanx

[heath]

We use or have used just about every collaboration tool at work.  It frequently annoys me that we use so many different platforms that I refer to them collectively as "Wuphf" (a "The Office" reference).  But I had never heard of Zoom three weeks ago.  Now, it seems to be what everyone is using.  I just got off of a Zoom meeting with a state-wide IT group.  My son's university has moved all of their classes online to Zoom.  Our church is using it for Sunday School and Bible studies.  That's an impressively rapid adoption rate. 

[deanwebb]

I've been using Zoom in my company for 3 years now. I'm a Zoom hipster.

[Dieselboy]

Adoption rate has been extreme. We just hope people dont confuse "remote learning" or "remote working" with web-based video conferencing; which is one tiny piece or the larger ecosystem.