Facetime bandwidth

Question

Level 1

38 points

Facetime bandwidth

I wanted to know if anyone had yet place any network monitoring gear in place to see how much bandwidth face time needs. Also it would be nice to know what the handshake for a face tine call looks like.

Thanks,

Joe

PC

Posted on Jun 26, 2010 12:17 PM

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Answer 1

ericj3k

Level 1

0 points

Jun 27, 2010 9:48 AM in response to Joe_Dawson

Hey Joe,

I just got off the phone with apple and a FaceTime guru, and I was told you must have a minimum upload speed of 100kbps (kilobits per second) and a download speed equal or faster than the upload speed to achieve a FaceTime call. This is the bare minimum so anything faster would mean improved video quality and no choppy video. Most wifi hotspots and home Internet can easily achieve this. Hope this helps.

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Answer 2

Joe_Dawson Author

Level 1

38 points

Jun 27, 2010 10:01 AM in response to ericj3k

That is a great start... Thanks for that information.

On a bad day on an iPhone in Canada (using speedtest.net app for the iphone) we can get more then 100kbps in both directions. Often more like 2,000+ kbps both ways.

So this is a good sign that we should see facetime in 3G soon.
Based on 100kbps you would be sending and receiving 1.5MB ever 60 seconds.
Or you would break you 500MB limit with 5.5 hours of facetime.
5 hours of facetime sounds like more then the average person would ever do in a month.

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Answer 3

Aug 1, 2010 5:08 AM in response to Joe_Dawson

According to the source below, it works out around <200MB/Hr both receive and send for facetime session. I think it also depends how much movement there are in your video stream. e.g if the video of you does not have much movement, then the data sent will be minimal compared to constant movement in the video. hopes this makes sense.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/simplified/4733259233/

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