With many people returning to work and school, organizations across the world are continuing to leverage Zoom to
collaborate with on-site, remote, and hybrid colleagues.
However, as this shift to in-person operations takes place, organizations are experiencing higher volumes of traffic over
their networks, reducing the bandwidth available for video communications. This lack of bandwidth can quickly become
a bottleneck that slows real-time communication and collaboration, resulting in poor audio and video quality, and a less
effective meeting experience.
The good news is that Zoom is designed to work in low-bandwidth environments. When you host or join a meeting, the
Zoom client will run a number of checks, including available bandwidth and quality-of-service telemetry, to enable a stable,
consistent connection while prioritizing audio and screen sharing over video.
Here are some tips for optimizing your meeting experience, even in low-bandwidth situations.
If you are experiencing poor performance caused
by bandwidth congestion, you can try manually
reducing the amount of bandwidth required to
run Zoom Meetings by:
● Disabling HD video: Simply go to Sengs,
click on the Video tab, and uncheck the box
for HD video.
● Disabling video feed: Although video is
a key feature of Zoom Meengs, you can
turn o your video to reduce the amount of
bandwidth used for those situaons where
clear audio is a priority. Simply click on the
video icon and make sure your ‘Start Video’
buon is crossed out to turn o video.
For end-users
Optimizing Performance of Zoom in Low
Bandwidth Environments
Opmizing Performance in Low Bandwidth Environments | April 2021 | 2
Organizations may want to configure their network settings to optimize traffic and ensure reliable performance of their
Zoom Meetings. Here are some of our resources and recommendations to help you optimize and maintain traffic:
If further support is needed, Zoom oers an Advanced Professional Service. Contact your
Zoom Soluon Engineer or your Account Execuve.
Zoom Firewall and Network Requirements
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362683-Network-firewall-or-proxy-server-settings-for-Zoom
Configuring Zoom Group HD
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/207347086-Group-HD
Zoom VPN Split Tunneling recommendations
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360053610731-VPN-Split-Tunneling-Recommendations
Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group report
https://www.bitag.org/documents/bitag_report.pdf
● Ensure correct network conguraon: Ensure that your network
is congured correctly for an opmal experience with our
recommended network rewall and proxy conguraons.
● Understand the bandwidth usage for a meeng: We’ve documented
the recommended bandwidth requirements to allow administrators
to calculate the trac generated by Zoom on their network.
● Use the correct direct rewall conguraon: User Datagram
Protocol (UDP) is always the preferred conguraon when
leveraging real-me collaboraon tools. Our plaorm can fall back
to TCP if roung through a Web Proxy is required, but this proxy can
also create a connecon boleneck.
● Enable peer-to-peer connecons: This allows users to directly
connect to each other on the local area network while in a two-
person meeng and bypass the internet connecon.
● Manage VPN and split tunneling: Zoom has tools that can bypass
roung trac directly via the enterprise rewall oering dedicated
bandwidth to users.
At this time, to enable this feature, please contact Zoom Support.
Zoom will be making a change to surface this feature on all
accounts in the near future.
For organizations and IT professionals
Resources
