What internet speed do you need for Microsoft Teams?

For a Teams video meeting, Microsoft recommends 4 Mbps download and 2.5 Mbps upload per person. A one-to-one video call needs 1.5 Mbps each way, and an audio-only call needs well under 0.1 Mbps. Any broadband connection that passes 10 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload handles one person's Teams use comfortably.

The harder part is usually not the speed. It's upload headroom and a stable connection while everything else in the house is running.

Minimum, recommended and best performance

Microsoft's bandwidth table gives three levels, and they mean quite different things:

• Minimum (150 kbps for video) keeps a call going at low quality: video up to 240p and choppy screen sharing.
• Recommended (1.5 Mbps for 1:1 video, 4 Mbps down for meetings) gets you video up to 1080p.
• Best performance (4 Mbps each way) is for larger meetings, fast-moving shared content and connections that lose packets.

Microsoft also says Teams "can deliver HD video quality in under 1.5 Mbps." When bandwidth runs short, Teams protects audio first and lowers video quality, so you'll usually keep hearing people even when their video freezes.

Upload is the number to check

Most home plans have far less upload than download, and Teams sends your camera and screen share upstream. In a meeting, Microsoft's recommended rate is 2.5 Mbps upload. That's easy on fiber, but on a cable or DSL line with a few Mbps of upload, one cloud backup or a family member posting a video can push it over the edge.

When upload runs out, the line doesn't just get slower. Ping climbs too, which shows up as frozen video and robotic audio. This is bufferbloat, and it can happen even when your speed test numbers look healthy. If Teams breaks up only while something else is uploading, that's the likely cause.

Working out what your home needs

Add up everyone who might be on a call at the same time, using the recommended figures:

Who's on calls	Download	Upload
One person in a meeting	4 Mbps	2.5 Mbps
Two people in separate meetings	8 Mbps	5 Mbps
Two in meetings, one on a 1:1 call	9.5 Mbps	6.5 Mbps

Then add everything else that runs at the same time, such as streaming, game downloads and cloud backups. Leave spare upload above the total so the line never sits at its limit.

VPNs and Teams

If you connect to work through a VPN, Teams traffic may be sent through it. Microsoft recommends a split-tunnel VPN, which lets Teams go directly to Microsoft instead of through the VPN, because VPNs add delay and often weren't built for live audio and video. Your IT team controls this setting, so if Teams is poor only when the VPN is on, tell them. Our post on how a VPN can slow your internet explains the effect.

Large town halls and live events

For Teams events built for large audiences, Microsoft estimates about 2 Mbps per viewer (3 Mbps for 1080p) at each location, unless the organization uses an enterprise content delivery network. That matters for an office full of viewers on one connection. At home, a single viewer is well within any broadband plan.

How to check your connection for Teams

Run the SpeedMetric speed test on the computer you use for calls, connected the way you usually work. Compare download and upload with the table above, then look at ping and jitter. A low, steady ping matters as much as Mbps for calls.

SpeedMetric measures ping with the line idle. It doesn't measure ping under load or packet loss, so if calls break up only at certain times, run a test while the problem is happening and note what else is using the connection. Plugging in with Ethernet is the quickest way to rule out Wi-Fi; see Wi-Fi vs Ethernet speed. If the connection is stable but audio still cuts out, packet loss, jitter and lag covers the next things to check.