Lots of online call drop outs. Caused by network errors? How to diagnose?

[Robin-VL]

Hey everyone, I'm a college student and with lock downs in Europe I need to do lots of my classes and project defenses online.

When in online calls using discord, blackboard, teams, etc. I have a real bad time staying connected properly. I often drop out only being able to hear but not speak in the call, and in blackboard I go out all together.

This has been a real nuisance. 

My setup is a xps 15 9570 connected to wired ethernet using a usb dongle. The dongle I use is this one https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Ethernet-1000Mbps-Nintendo-Chromebook/dp/B00LLUEJFU

The dongle uses the network chip that is recommended to use with the nintendo switch.

Networking in het home is cat5E rated cables, with gigabit switches, although it is cat5e, download speed is between 200-300mbps (cat5e is unofficially often capable of this). Modem and router in one device is of the brand Telenet (Belgian ISP property of liberty media) from this modem 1 accespoint/switch and 1 other switch are between the laptop and the modem.

 

Download speed is as mentioned on my device often between 200Mbps and 300Mbps. upload speed is 16Mbps (yes that is common for private internet subscriptions in Belgium).

Some digital tv channels experience problems as well from time to time. We hence think that the coax cable from the street to our home is bad, but in order to get this fixed, our drive way would be destroyed...

For ISP people to come by to test the coax cable, it would cost us a fair amount of money as well. They claim to not see any problem when they do a distanced network test through the modem.

I suspect the network generates a lot of errors and that is what causing me problems, especially because online calls are lag sensitive and such.

 

My question is thus, any recommendations how to do network diagnoses, LAN, between devices on the same network and maybe a device that can test coax cable quality? 

Things I would be able to do myself and making sure no other hardware is causing the problems of our network before calling the ISP and paying the bill (of cable testing and or breaking up our driveway).

Any other advice is welcome as well.

[kelvinhall05]

Yep, that's a common problem with the ISP I'm on in my area, not surprised it's happening where you are too.

 

 

Here it's a problem of the ISP just straight up running out of upload bandwidth. Wouldn't be surprised if it was the same problem where you live.

[Biomecanoid]

25 minutes ago, Robin-VL said:

Hey everyone, I'm a college student and with lock downs in Europe I need to do lots of my classes and project defenses online.

When in online calls using discord, blackboard, teams, etc. I have a real bad time staying connected properly. I often drop out only being able to hear but not speak in the call, and in blackboard I go out all together.

This has been a real nuisance. 

My setup is a xps 15 9570 connected to wired ethernet using a usb dongle. The dongle I use is this one https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Ethernet-1000Mbps-Nintendo-Chromebook/dp/B00LLUEJFU

The dongle uses the network chip that is recommended to use with the nintendo switch.

Networking in het home is cat5E rated cables, with gigabit switches, although it is cat5e, download speed is between 200-300mbps (cat5e is unofficially often capable of this). Modem and router in one device is of the brand Telenet (Belgian ISP property of liberty media) from this modem 1 accespoint/switch and 1 other switch are between the laptop and the modem.

 

Download speed is as mentioned on my device often between 200Mbps and 300Mbps. upload speed is 16Mbps (yes that is common for private internet subscriptions in Belgium).

Some digital tv channels experience problems as well from time to time. We hence think that the coax cable from the street to our home is bad, but in order to get this fixed, our drive way would be destroyed...

For ISP people to come by to test the coax cable, it would cost us a fair amount of money as well. They claim to not see any problem when they do a distanced network test through the modem.

I suspect the network generates a lot of errors and that is what causing me problems, especially because online calls are lag sensitive and such.

 

My question is thus, any recommendations how to do network diagnoses, LAN, between devices on the same network and maybe a device that can test coax cable quality? 

Things I would be able to do myself and making sure no other hardware is causing the problems of our network before calling the ISP and paying the bill (of cable testing and or breaking up our driveway).

Any other advice is welcome as well.

If your streaming TV you got from your provider is also acting up, its your ISP no need to test anything. You seem to know where the problem is, but i can understand its quite a task to change the underground cable.

 

If you want to test your internal network speed use iPerf