How can I make a Facetime call stronger?

chrisjchrisj said:

I'm trying to improve my Facetime video call sessions between my Macbook and an iPhone. It seems there's some delay/latency. What can be done to improve the quality of the call/connection?

Is 4G is the fastest/best speed available for a Facetime call?

Do you think having a personal hotspot device would help improve the quality of a Facetime call from (or to) my Macbook, from an iPhone?

Is a Cellular Data Plan(ATT) diffrent than wi-fi? Can Facebook run on either? Would the Cellular Data plan be better for this type of video connection?

Thanks again for your insight. much appreciated.

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Either LTE or Wifi is the best speed available. It depends, because some people have faster speeds on LTE than on their home Wifi.

Having a personal hotspot device would not help improve quality, unless it was running LTE in a good signal area.

Cellular is different than Wifi. Cellular comes from wireless cell phone companies, like ATT/Sprint/Verizon Wireless, and works pretty much everywhere you go. Wifi comes from your home internet router, and only works at home. Yes Facebook can run on either. Generally Wifi is better for FaceTime calls.

chrisjchrisj said:

Thanks for your reply.

Sorry I meant can FaceTime (not facebook) run on either wi-fi or cellular network?

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It depends on your cell plan. On AT&T it works, as long as you aren't on an unlimited plan. On Verizon and Sprint it works no matter the plan (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

chrisjchrisj said:

Why do you say generally W-Fi is better for Facetime calls?

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Because generally your home Wifi is faster than your cell connection. This has changed for some people with LTE, however, so I can't say definitively which one will be faster for you.

chrisjchrisj said:

You said; "Having a personal hotspot device would not help improve quality, unless it was running LTE in a good signal area".

So, if I had a personal hotspot, in a good signal area (maybe near a cell tower?), running LTE, the speed and quality of a Facetime call might be optimal?

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First of all, which phone do you have? If you have the iPhone 5, then it already supports LTE, so getting the personal hotspot won't help (unless you get it from another carrier with better LTE coverage near you, but that's a stretch).

Tell me, what phone do you have, and where do you usually make FaceTime calls (at home, in the car, at the mall...etc)?

Any modern home internet setup with a wireless router should definitely provide sufficient upload/download speeds for FaceTime.

I wouldn't count on your cellular network for maximum quality. Why? Because unless it's LTE, it's definitely not coming close to your home WiFi network speeds (unless that sucks too). And even if it's LTE, you likely don't have unlimited data, and FaceTime would probably use a chunk of data you don't want to use.

Dwalls90 said:

Any modern home internet setup with a wireless router should definitely provide sufficient upload/download speeds for FaceTime.

I wouldn't count on your cellular network for maximum quality. Why? Because unless it's LTE, it's definitely not coming close to your home WiFi network speeds (unless that sucks too). And even if it's LTE, you likely don't have unlimited data, and FaceTime would probably use a chunk of data you don't want to use.

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I generally agree with this statement. At my old apartment, however, LTE was significantly better than my Comcast home internet for FaceTime. Even when sitting on top of the router, but especially when I walked away from the router to the bathroom or something. Switching to LTE always provided a perfect FaceTime call.

chrisjchrisj said:

Why do you say generally W-Fi is better for Facetime calls?

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Because typically WIFI has more bandwidth AND even if you are on a high-speed cellular area coverage, you are most likely sharing the bandwidth with hundreds and thousands of cellular users.

In fact FT was restricted to WIFI until recently.

FT is today what cellular data was to iPhone1... works but not pretty and/or consistent.

DodgeV83 said:

I generally agree with this statement. At my old apartment, however, LTE was significantly better than my Comcast home internet for FaceTime. Even when sitting on top of the router, but especially when I walked away from the router to the bathroom or something. Switching to LTE always provided a perfect FaceTime call.

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Saying "Comcast" isn't enough information. Comcast offers pretty cheap and not so great internet packages of about 20/2 Mbps. LTE even on an average day beats that by a fair margin (at least here).

If you upgrade to 50/10 Mbps, then your internet will surely be better. It has little to do with your router in this case, and more to do with your internet speeds you pay for.

We did this a little while back, and it was worth the extra few bucks per month. Look into it

Do a speedtest.net test on WiFi and LTE and post the results.

Dwalls90 said:

Saying "Comcast" isn't enough information. Comcast offers pretty cheap and not so great internet packages of about 20/2 Mbps. LTE even on an average day beats that by a fair margin (at least here).

If you upgrade to 50/10 Mbps, then your internet will surely be better. It has little to do with your router in this case, and more to do with your internet speeds you pay for.

We did this a little while back, and it was worth the extra few bucks per month. Look into it

Do a speedtest.net test on WiFi and LTE and post the results.

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Unfortunately, I'm not in that location anymore to perform any tests. I remember it wasn't the speeds that failed me, it was the reliability. Every few minutes or so, the FaceTime call would degrade dramatically, go black, and say "reconnecting". After about 30 seconds of that, the call went back into perfect quality.

It wouldn't surprise me if paying for the upgraded package would improve reliability though...

In any case, since we don't have much information on how the OP is connecting, I stand by my statement that generally your home Wifi should be better for FaceTime, but there can be exceptions

Over wifi . Get yourself a high end router and that will give U better speed and less buffereing As for over Lte or 4G. Not much U can do