Did you get here as you’re a Microsoft Teams user doing remote work because of the new Coronavirus – Covid-19? Congrats – you’re in the right place to have your Internet connectivity issues solved. So, just relax – everything will be fine!

So your company recently transitioned you to work from home using Microsoft Teams. You can chat, meet, collaborate and keep the office running smoothly. By the end of the day Thursday, March 5, 2020, chat was up 50 percent week over week and meetings were up 37 percent.  With everyone that can work from home or those taking online classes, how can you ensure you will have a strong internet connection with this demand?

When working from home, a reliable Internet connection is paramount. Think about it – all the work moves online, including meetings. Those are the most sensitive ones when it comes to Internet connectivity. Even a tiny disruption of service will disconnect you from the video conference and discussion. Then, you’ll lose the flow and will be more concerned in filling in the gaps rather than focusing on what’s being discussed, etc.

You think this will not happen to you? Just do a search on “<your ISP> + disconnects” (e.g.  Xfinity disconnects) or “Internet disconnecting in <city>”. See what I mean? And if you think that using Microsoft Teams will protect you from those – you’re wrong again. Microsoft is not an ISP – their services work best on top of a reliable and fast Internet connection. So how to get that?

As mentioned before, if you’re working from home on Microsoft, you need a fast and stable Internet for best results. Unfortunately, things can go wrong when you’re least expecting:

• your home ISP can do maintenance work, so the Internet might be very slow, if not disconnect altogether.
• your Wi-Fi router and/or modem can have temporary issues.
• if you’re using mobile data Internet, there might be an issue with the cell tower. Or you might have gone over your data plan for 4G / 5G speeds.
• Microsoft can have issues of their own, with outages due to overcrowding.

Whatever the cause, it’s frustrating that most of us can’t trust our Internet connection while working from home. Unless we fix this…

First off – to eliminate Microsoft-related issues, check out their service status page.

Then, after ruling this out, you might think that restarting your Wi-Fi router / modem could help. It can, but for how long? Calling your ISP could also help in reporting an issue, but how long will it take them to fix the problem? And can they guarantee that it won’t happen again?

Solution 1: Get a dedicated (business) plan from your ISP. Of course, if you have the budget and your ISP can offer that. But that can be costly and you’d still be dependent on one Internet service provider.

Solution 2: Get an extra Internet connection from a different ISP. Preferably from a different source type, meaning that if you already have cable Internet, try to get a cellular plan. Or if you have satellite Internet, at least go for DSL. Oh, and you have to think about a fast solution to switch between these connection, should one of them fail. Otherwise, you’ll still be disconnected from those video conferences…

Solution 3: Use Speedify bonding VPN – it really works. The special thing about Speedify is that it can combine two or more Internet connections together at the same time. So, regardless of what happens, as long as one of those connections is up and running, you’ll be online.

You may be thinking: “Oh, look… yet another load balancing software…” and you’d be wrong! Speedify does much more than load balancing: channel bonding. It can use all the connections at the same time. And will intelligently reroute traffic to the working connection(s) before any of them stop working. You won’t even know something happened – your video calls and streaming will go on uninterrupted.

What about data security while working from home? When working remote, data security is very important, as you’re accessing company data. You wouldn’t want that to fall into the hands of the competition. The best part with Speedify being a bonding VPN is it also encrypts traffic going in and out of your device. Your sensitive company data will be safe from hackers and cyber criminals.

So, with no false modesty, Speedify is an essential tool for your Microsoft Teams. It’s available for individual use on up to 5 devices on all major platforms (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux). But there’s also Speedify for Teams, with more add-ons, such as dedicated servers.