FaceTime horrible on fast WiFi, perfect on cellular LTE?

No Apple is not slowing things randomly. It is slowing it on purpose. When connected through wifi, FaceTime use around 300KB/s and when using 4G, it's at 30kB/s.

The quality is much better in wifi when using fast network but if the network is not good enough, then image stability is better on 4G network because it's easier to transmit 30KB/s than 300KB/s.

Apple wants products to stay simple with minimum of options, but it would be really useful to select bandwidth usage limitation with a manual switch.

Big problem with FaceTime. What a nuisance. Works fine with iPhone. Works very well with MacBook Pro older model but does not work properly with new MacBook Pro 2017. Choppy and laggy. Freezes. Drives me nuts. If I take a FaceTime call on my new MacBook Pro, I end up having to return the call either on my older model or with my iPhone. A month ago, I called Apple and reset the PRAM as suggested. No improvement whatsoever I did a reset of my router but that did not change anything. I verified the time zone, date and time and they appear to be OK. I am the only one using the internet at home and I only use one device at a time so there is no overload. I am out of options and very annoyed. Does anyone have this kind of issue with one of three devices not working properly with FaceTime?

Thank you

Michelle

If you have connection or sound quality issues with FaceTime

If your cellular connection or Wi-Fi network are running slow, or other users are streaming audio or video on the same Wi-Fi network, you might have these issues:

• Connection alerts or unable to connect
• Choppy video calls
• Black screen
• Dropped calls

Make sure that both you and the person that you're calling are using a fast Wi-Fi or cellular connection. If you’re using Wi-Fi, FaceTime requires a broadband connection.

I also recommend trying this at a different physical location on a different Wi-Fi connection to see if you get the same result.
Let me know what happens.
Cheers.

Hi,

I have the same problem. When I want to call my brother or my parrents, usually the facetime video quality is very bad and not smooth at all. The audio is ok. It’s no difference what devide we use (iPhones/iPads/Macbooks or iMac).

Our internet (measured by Ookla speedtest)

- mine - around 60/60 Mbps download/upload, ping around 5 ms

- brothers - 50/20 Mbps down/up, ping around 5 ms

- parents - 20/15 Mbps down/up, ping around 5 ms

The speed is always ok with no problem, Skype works good so why Facetime doesn’t?

Any idea?

Was there any solution to this? I'm having the same problem.

My spouse has the same phone. We are on the same SID. When she is facetimed by our daughter, no issues. Works horrible for me on wifi but runs fine on cellular. I'm 100 down and 20 up and minimal latency.

We are both running the same version of software. This started a month or two ago. I've done a complete rest of the phone. Same issue....Apple SW slowing things down randomly?

Stability is not the issue hereabout rather much bytes can your link pull? For example, at my office I am getting 78/84 Mbps (download/upload) on Wi-Fi thru our corporate 2Gbps Internet connection and 22/18 Mbps on the carrier's 4G link. All services work perfectly on either, but Wi-Fi gets things done much quicker.

While most providers tout the download link with more emphasis than the up, when using stuff such as FaceTime up becomes critical since you're sending as much stuff out as getting in and both must stay in sync.

You mention 34/6. Is that the icky Wi-Fi or the cellular? And the other?

Well, if your Wi-Fi suks and your carrier is stellar, that could explain the problem. Test bandwidth & connectivity on both links and compare with a checker such as Ookla's Speedtest.

Latency can have as big (or bigger) effect on performance as speed.