How Speedify’s Streaming Mode Works to Deliver QoS to Your Streams

Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, WhatsApp – they’re all amazing at what they do. And that is letting you connect with your coworkers and family with high quality audio and video. If you can’t be next to your loved ones and your business partners, then at least you can see and hear them.

But not everything is peachy all the time. Invariably on any of these platforms sometimes the audio drops out, sometimes the video turns into a strange, pixelated mess and even worse, sometimes the whole call drops. How to avoid this from happening? Read below to find out.

Some recent tests we did with Streaming Mode include:

• Zoom
• Skype
• Google Meet
• WhatsApp
• Twitch
• PUBG

So why does this happen? It’s usually related to the quality of your Internet connection. Most of the time it’s one of the following:

1. Other services hogging the internet bandwidth. At some point there might not be enough left to send and receive the audio and video packets that Zoom, Skype or Google Meet needs;
2. Slow Internet speed. Some Internet connections just aren’t fast enough to send and receive the streaming packets;
3. High packet loss. Internet connections are dropping network packets, so Zoom / Skype / Google Meet misses parts of the audio or video. This usually happens at the edge of the range on wireless connections like Wi-Fi and cellular.

And if you’re moving while using the Internet – riding on trains and buses for example – you can experience all of these things in one call. That’s because the coverage varies as you travel through hills and tunnels and bridges.

This is where Speedify’s new Streaming Mode steps in, addressing all these issues. In Streaming Mode, Speedify automatically detects audio and video streams. It does that by looking at packet headers, and the patterns in the packets being sent and received. This lets it recognize calls from almost any application. By watching the flow of packets, Speedify can determine:

• how much bandwidth the app is trying to use, and
• whether or not it is getting the capacity it requires.

Once Speedify has identified the streams, it does several things for them:

1. Maintains Quality of Service (QoS) to make sure they get the connectivity they need versus other services. Speedify prioritizes streaming traffic over other types of web traffic. Things like web browsing, backups and software updates won’t mess up your calls and live streams.
2. Bonds connections for faster Internet speed. In the most common example, when your Wi-Fi connection is not fast enough for the streams you’re using, Speedify will start sending traffic using your other active connections, such as cellular data.
   Speedify can split single streams across multiple Internet connections. It can send some packets on Wi-Fi, some on cellular and some on a wired Ethernet connection, if available. Speedify also reassembles these packets so the app just sees a faster Internet connection. By moving network packets through all available connections on a computer, smartphone, tablet or other supported device, Speedify can get up to 95% of the speed of the combined connections.

3. Minimizes packet loss using redundancy. If your Internet connections are dropping network packets, then Speedify can detect this. It will start sending the packets redundantly, on all available internet connections at the same time! This means the packets for your call are actually sent on both Wi-Fi and Cellular on your smartphone.
   Speedify only delivers whichever packet gets through first. By sending the same data on both connections, and then only delivering whichever copy gets through first, Speedify provides the best reliability of all connections and the lowest latency of any of your connections.
   So, Speedify helps you survive network drop outs, avoid bad latency, and make sure that everything gets through, even in the worst conditions.

Here’s what happens under the hood of Streaming Mode. Speedify adds timing information to every network packet, so it can gather statistics in real-time. As connections change, and other apps start or stop sending data, Speedify adjusts its strategies on the fly. So, you might be bonding connections on the bridge, but Speedify will automatically switch to Redundant Mode as soon as you enter the tunnel. You don’t need to worry about it. Just make your call: if there’s any way to get it through, Speedify will make it happen.

To activate Speedify’s Streaming Mode:

• click the gear icon in the main user interface to go to the main Settings menu.
• click on “Bonding Mode” under the Session Settings section.
• it currently defaults to Speed, but you can click it to change it to Streaming Mode. This will take effect immediately.

To learn more about Streaming Mode check out the Speedify Knowledge Base article.

If you’re tired of calls issues or streams buffering on Zoom, Skype, Google Meet or WhatsApp, then update to the latest Speedify version and switch to Streaming Mode!

To activate Speedify’s Streaming Mode:

• click the gear icon in the main user interface to go to the main Settings menu.
• click on “Bonding Mode” under the Session Settings section.
• it currently defaults to Speed, but you can click it to change it to Streaming Mode. This will take effect immediately.

To learn more about Streaming Mode check out the Speedify Knowledge Base article.

If you’re tired of calls issues or streams buffering on Zoom, Skype, Google Meet or WhatsApp, then update to the latest Speedify version and switch to Streaming Mode!