What internet speed do you need for Webex?

Webex HD video uses at most 3.0 Mbps upload and 2.5 Mbps download per person, according to the Webex Help Center. High quality video tops out at 1.5 Mbps up and 1.0 Mbps down, and standard quality at 0.5 Mbps each way. Almost any broadband plan covers one person. What usually causes trouble is upload: a weak Wi-Fi link, a VPN, or a few people on calls at the same time.

These are ceilings, not minimums

Webex labels these numbers as maximum bandwidth use. The app adjusts video quality to whatever your connection can handle, so a call still works below them, just at lower resolution. Webex says real use depends on your camera, its resolution and frame rate, how many cameras are on in the meeting, how many are on your home network, and what else is sharing the line, such as screen sharing.

For the Webex App, Cisco gives smaller figures in its video specifications: about 700 kbps for a 360p call, 1.5 Mbps for 720p, and about 80 kbps with video off.

Bigger meetings need more download

You only send one video stream, but in a grid you receive several. Cisco's bandwidth planning paper measured this:

• 2 people, no sharing: about 1.6 Mbps peak each way.
• 6 people in a 3×2 grid with content sharing: 1.6 Mbps peak sent, 3.3 Mbps peak received.
• 25 people in a 5×5 grid with sharing: 2.6 Mbps peak sent, 5.5 Mbps peak received.

So even a large meeting stays under 6 Mbps of download per person in Cisco's figures. Upload barely changes with meeting size.

Plan for everyone who's on a call at once

Add up the people in your home who might be on video at the same time. Two people on HD Webex need up to 2 × 3.0 = 6 Mbps upload and 2 × 2.5 = 5 Mbps download. Three people need 9 Mbps up and 7.5 Mbps down.

Then leave room for everything else. As a rule of thumb, aim for about twice the total, because cloud backups, phone photo uploads and game updates don't pause for your meeting. By that rule, one HD caller wants about 6 Mbps of upload and two want about 12 Mbps. A plan with 3 Mbps of upload only just covers one caller, with nothing left over. Webex makes the same point: its help page notes that a DSL line with 256 Kbps of upload wouldn't meet the requirement.

Test the connection you'll call from

Run the SpeedMetric speed test on the device and in the room you use for meetings, not next to the router. Look at three numbers:

1. Upload. It should be comfortably above 3 Mbps per HD caller.
2. Ping. A low, steady ping makes conversation feel natural. Webex doesn't publish a limit.
3. Jitter. High jitter means packets arrive unevenly, which you hear as choppy audio.

SpeedMetric measures idle ping and jitter. It doesn't measure packet loss, or how much ping rises while the line is busy. Cisco says Webex can recover from heavy packet loss by resending and correcting data, but that adds delay. If calls only break up when someone else is uploading, the cause is probably bufferbloat rather than too little speed.

What to fix first

• Use Ethernet or move closer to the router. Wi-Fi drops packets and adds jitter long before it runs out of speed. See why Wi-Fi is slower than Ethernet.
• Check the VPN. A company VPN can send all your meeting traffic through a distant server. Ask IT whether Webex can bypass it. VPNs and speed explains the trade-off.
• Pause big uploads during calls. Cloud photo sync and backups use exactly the upload Webex needs.
• Lower your own video quality if upload is tight. Dropping from HD to high quality cuts your upload ceiling from 3.0 to 1.5 Mbps.

If your test numbers look fine but video still freezes, the problem is usually on the path to Webex rather than your plan's speed. Work through the steps for packet loss and lag next.