Network
Video conferencing (VC) requires sending and receiving large amounts of data (Video and Audio) in real time with minimal interruption. In order to have the best VC experience possible, it is important to ensure that your network is running at optimal speed.
Initially Telehealth consultations may be infrequent and therefore have minimal impact on your existing network and applications, but as adoption of this technology increases, the degradation of the network may become an issue because data transmission will slow down.
Is your network ready?
Firstly, your network must have adequate bandwidth for VC. Adding VC traffic to your existing network may not only cause issues with your VC, but may cause issues with other existing network bases applications, e.g. Clinical and practice management applications and Internet browsing. As your internal network becomes more congested, applications will fight with the available bandwidth and as a result, may cause applications to feel sluggish or jerky.
Ensuring that your network is up to standard, it should be assessed and upgraded where possible to help VC work at their optimum level. Whether hardware or software based VC systems are chosen, the underlying network backbone is an important consideration.
Therefore, if your practice already has significant IT requirements and you are not sure what impact additional VC activity will have on your existing capacity it is worth getting an assessment of the system.
Ethernet vs Wireless
IT equipment is usually connected via Ethernet (a type of physical wiring) and is the preferred method for VC interconnectivity, as opposed to wireless (WiFi), as wireless technology is considerably slower and less consistent in speed and throughput.
A typical Ethernet connection will have the minimal throughput capabilities of 100Mbps, where the typical maximum throughput for an 802.11g 54Mbps wireless connection is about 22 Mbps. Although both these technologies, in theory, have enough throughput for VC alone, in practice, wireless will almost always have additional environmental factors to consider i.e. building design, radio frequency interference and placement of wireless routers and access points. Therefore where a wired network is available, it should always be favoured over wireless.
Computers
Almost all computers purchased these days will have inbuilt 1Gbps (1000Mbps) network interface cards (NICs), and generally this should be more than adequate speed for VC sessions and your additional software applications. However, for older existing computers, this may not be the case. 100Mbps (10x slower than 1Gbps) NIC's are still prevalent and can cause a dramatic bottleneck to your network.
Fortunately most computers can be upgraded with a basic 1Gbps NIC and can be installed with minimal technical experience; this will usually give greater reliability and performance.
Routers and Switches
Network equipment such as routers and switches are particularly important to maintaining network performance. Most older switches were only rated at 10/100Mbps, and therefore they are incapable of supporting 1Gbps equipment at full speed. More importantly, many would only run as fast as the slowest device connected. So for example if an old network printer only runs at 10Mbps, everything connected to that network would slow to 10Mbps, even if the majority of equipment is capable if 1Gbps.
Increasingly however, routers and switches are becoming much faster and 'smarter', allowing connection of slower network devices to be connected, without affecting the overall performance of the network. Many have features like Quality of Service (QoS), which is ideal for VC as they can be programmed to prioritise VC communication, thus offering a better VC experience.
Cable and network points
Older buildings may have been wired with out-dated Ethernet cables and network points. This can also cause networks to run slowly as out-dated Ethernet cables are incapable of maintaining modern network speeds and demand. Assessment of existing wiring should be performed to ensure they are capable of these higher speeds. If upgrading or installing new Ethernet wiring, a minimum of Cat 6 is recommended. Cat 6 is certified to deliver 1Gbps and higher speeds. Where longer runs and/or high bandwidth is required, optical fibre may be necessary. Again, if you practice is likely to undertake significant number of VC it would be appropriate to consider upgrading the system to achieve these specifications.
Segmenting your network
In certain networks where heavy VC will be utilised, segmenting (separating) your network from VC content may be a viable option. This is a method of having 2 separate networks, usually performed via a router, will separate the VC component and help relieve the network congestion. This will need to be assessed and performed by an IT specialist. This method is relatively easily achieved for hardware based VC equipment but will become much more challenging when integrated software VC solutions are chosen.
A quick network test
To get a truly accurate test of your network, it will probably need to be conducted by an IT specialist, although a quick indication is provided when checking the network speed of your network card.
Note: This method varies slightly for different operating systems and computer configurations, i.e. Windows XP, 7 and Mac, and may not be possible your network administrator has disabled this feature.
For the purpose of the following network test exercise a Windows 7 computer was used to display the basic wired network speed.
Step 1
Click your network icon displayed down the bottom right hand side of your screen (near the time) and select Open Network and Sharing Center.
Step 2
Click on Local Area Connection (see underlined text).
Step 3
This will display your LAN properties and your connection speed e.g. 1 Gbps
Conclusion
This only shows the basic physical connection speed of your network and does not take into consideration your network congestion. Therefore this is only a quick indication of your network speed. 100Mbps is more than adequate for transmitting a VC call, but with the addition of other network traffic, anything slower than 1Gbps is not recommended and may contribute to a poor quality VC. By upgrading your connection speed to a minimum of 1Gbps or faster if possible, it will not only help your VC systems but will speed up your other network based applications as well, i.e. practice and clinic applications.
How to help reduce congestion
A fast connection will help the overall performance of the network but network congestion may have an effect when conducting a VC. The following suggestions can help reduce network congestion:
- Schedule backups during non-peak times, and when you do not schedule VCs.
- If you need to do software updates do these at different times to VC.
- Ensure all connected devices are clean from viruses and spyware.
- If VoIP (phone calls over the internet) are sharing your network, segment the network or use a LAN line or mobile to make calls during VC.