Facetime poor connection on wifi

[houmi]

So I've been having a lot of issues with Facetime, maybe others have experienced similar issues:

I usually facetime with my parents who live overseas, they have a 2Mbps/512kbps DSL and I have a 200/5Mbps connection, we never had poor connection issues until I switched to AImesh (router/node) from Merlin (router/AP). My mom uses an iPhone 7+ on wifi (2.4ghz) and I use an iPhone 7+ or xs on Wifi (either 2.4ghz or 5ghz)

No matter where I am in the house close to router or AImesh node, either of us will get poor connection, I first thought it was her connection causing this issue, but as soon as I switched to data on my end (LTE with T-Mobile), all the problems went away.

When the problems happen usually they can't see me but can hear me and I can see and hear them, which points to the fact that maybe my uplink is problematic or that maybe facetime has issues on wifi. I didn't see anything out of ordinary in the system log (like disconnections caused by Roaming Assistant), I have nothing that is using the uplink and in the traffic analyzer so I am completely baffled.

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

So I've been having a lot of issues with Facetime, maybe others have experienced similar issues:

I usually facetime with my parents who live overseas, they have a 2Mbps/512kbps DSL and I have a 200/5Mbps connection, we never had poor connection issues until I switched to AImesh (router/node) from Merlin (router/AP). My mom uses an iPhone 7+ on wifi (2.4ghz) and I use an iPhone 7+ or xs on Wifi (either 2.4ghz or 5ghz)

No matter where I am in the house close to router or AImesh node, either of us will get poor connection, I first thought it was her connection causing this issue, but as soon as I switched to data on my end (LTE with T-Mobile), all the problems went away.

When the problems happen usually they can't see me but can hear me and I can see and hear them, which points to the fact that maybe my uplink is problematic or that maybe facetime has issues on wifi. I didn't see anything out of ordinary in the system log (like disconnections caused by Roaming Assistant), I have nothing that is using the uplink and in the traffic analyzer so I am completely baffled.

I'm sure you'll get other suggestions, but there's some missing info. What ASUS models are you using? What type of backhaul are you using (router <> node)? Have you turned-off Airtime Fairness? Also check QoS settings - maybe even turn it off.

 

[houmi]

I'm sure you'll get other suggestions, but there's some missing info. What ASUS models are you using? What type of backhaul are you using (router <> node)? Have you turned-off Airtime Fairness? Also check QoS settings - maybe even turn it off.

Routers are both RT-AC1900P , very close serial numbers when i bought them 2+ years ago or so. They're connected via wired Gigabit Lan

Roaming Assistant Enabled: -70dbm (for both 2.4/5)
Airtime Fairness: Disabled
802.11ac Beamforming: Disabled
Universal Beamforming: Disabled
Tx Power Adjustment: Performance
QoS: Off
Firmware: 3.0.0.4.384_45149-g467037b

The only thing I noticed this morning is that when I did the Facetime video call with my mother yesterday on data and in the one hour it used 250Mb data over LTE, last week I did a Facetime video with my father for an hour, and it was on wifi and it used 1.52Gb of data over wifi, so it's possible for facetime over wifi, I would need optimal settings / locality.

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

The only thing I noticed this morning is that when I did the Facetime video call with my mother yesterday on data and in the one hour it used 250Mb data over LTE, last week I did a Facetime video with my father for an hour, and it was on wifi and it used 1.52Gb of data over wifi, so it's possible for facetime over wifi, I would need optimal settings / locality.

Well. I've got no ideas except go back to your Merlin setup. I think you said the problem happened after switching from Merlin.
AFA the data per hour, I think that T M may have some built-in data compression over their wireless network for some common video apps.

 

[houmi]

Well. I've got no ideas except go back to your Merlin setup. I think you said the problem happened after switching from Merlin.
AFA the data per hour, I think that T M may have some built-in data compression over their wireless network for some common video apps.

When I was on Merlin, I never had problems doing Facetime when I was sitting next to the router (like practically a few feet away), it would only disconnect me if I roamed around the house and when AImesh was available I tried it to see if it would fix the roaming issues and those are separate threads I have posted here. I also switched to iOS 12 beta then ios12 around the same time, so that could be an issue as well as Apple decided to re-write Facetime for iOS 12, so that's a lot of variables to deal with....

I'll continue using AIMesh and will just use data when I do Facetime since I have unlimited data on LTE...