Organizations around the world favor Microsoft Teams; however, that doesn’t mean everyone understands how Teams impacts their network. As an internet-dependent application, Teams consumes bandwidth. Hence, if you’re planning on using the application, you should try to understand its minimum, recommended, and best network capability requirements.
As an internet-dependent application, Microsoft Teams obviously consumes some amount of bandwidth; however, the amount of bandwidth consumed is not so obvious. That’s because multiple factors influence the app’s bandwidth consumption:
In this post, you can find information regarding Microsoft Teams’ bandwidth consumption when you attempt or participate in various tasks. These tasks include audio calls, video calls, meetings, screen sharing, general messaging, and distributing media files.
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How do one-to-one calls impact bandwidth in Teams?
A one-to-one or peer-to-peer call occurs between two users; as far as meeting and call-related processes go, one-to-one calls can be the least intensive on bandwidth. However, factors like the number of people speaking simultaneously and the complexity/quality of the audio transmitted still contribute toward bandwidth consumption to varying degrees.
The bandwidth requirement without video input
Microsoft Teams’ one-to-one calls require a minimum upload and download rate of 10Kbps. Although this minimum is operable, I wouldn’t recommend it. Instead, Microsofts recommend using an upload and download rate of 58Kbps (or better); however, 76Kbps (or more) is supposed to provide the best performance.
| Performance | Upload rate (Kbps) | Download rate (Kbps) |
| Minimum | 10 | 10 |
| Recommended | 58 | 58 |
| Best | 76 | 76 |
The bandwidth requirement with video input
You may have thought otherwise, but video calls (even with a single individual) require additional bandwidth. I imagine this is due to the amount of data contained within a single frame/image. In addition, your computer must understand how to color each pixel and adjust them per changes your webcam captures. For your computer to transmit this information accurately requires a greater upload rate. Similarly, a greater download rate is required to receive this information.
| Performance | Upload rate (Kbps) | Download rate (Kbps) |
| Minimum | 150 | 150 |
| Recommended | 1,500 | 1,500 |
| Best | 4,000 | 4,000 |
How do meetings impact bandwidth in Teams?
A meeting in Teams takes place within a Teams channel, often supporting a large number of participants. Despite this, Microsoft has not stated that Teams meetings require a more significant amount of minimum or optimal bandwidth.
The bandwidth requirement without video input
The values remain the same as those given for one-to-one calls.
The lack of change is likely a direct result of Microsoft’s significant effort to optimize calls and meetings.
| Performance | Upload rate (Kbps) | Download rate (Kbps) |
| Minimum | 10 | 10 |
| Recommended | 58 | 58 |
| Best | 76 | 76 |
The bandwidth requirement with video input
Much like when we add video input to a one-to-one call, our meetings begin to require a more significant deal of bandwidth. I have illustrated this in the table below.
| Performance | Upload rate (Kbps) | Download rate (Kbps) |
| Minimum | 150 | 200 |
| Recommended | 2,500 | 4,000 |
| Best | 4,000 | 4,000 |
How does screen sharing impact bandwidth in Teams?
Based on the prior sections, you might have guessed that screen sharing requires much more bandwidth. However, that’s not the case; though, its best performance occurs at the same level of bandwidth found for video transmission.
The bandwidth requirement in a one-to-one call
| Performance | Upload rate (Kbps) | Download rate (Kbps) |
| Minimum | 200 | 200 |
| Recommended | 1,500 | 1,500 |
| Best | 4,000 | 4,000 |
The bandwidth requirement in a meeting
| Performance | Upload rate (Kbps) | Download rate (Kbps) |
| Minimum | 250 | 250 |
| Recommended | 2,500 | 2,500 |
| Best | 4,000 | 4,000 |
How does messaging impact bandwidth in Teams?
Messaging is relatively straightforward and rarely requires much bandwidth. Fortunately, sending a message should not require more bandwidth than participating in a call.
Should I worry about messages?
A plain-text message is relatively easy to send; however, the more you tweak and edit your message, the more complex it becomes. For example, you can change the text’s color, size, or font. Fortunately, messaging is relatively inconsequential when you’re thinking about bandwidth.
A message on one platform may require more bandwidth than a message on another due to the metadata the platform attaches to your message.
How do media files impact bandwidth in Teams?
Most people understand media files as photos, audio files, videos, and presentations. That’s a diverse set of files. As one would imagine, your average-sized image doesn’t compare to your average-sized video. This fact makes estimating bandwidth requirements hard.
Can I guess how much bandwidth is needed?
There isn’t a minimum bandwidth required for transmitting data; however, should your bandwidth prove insufficient, your message can take an impractical amount of time to send. Fortunately, Teams has a file size limit (due to its relationship with SharePoint): 50 megabytes. So, suppose you have an upload rate of 5Mbps; it will take you about a minute to upload the file. Therefore, we’ll consider this our “best performance” bandwidth marker.
| Performance | Upload rate (Kbps) |
| Minimum | 500 |
| Recommended | 2,500 |
| Best | 5,000 |
Blog post recap
After assessing Microsoft Teams’ use of bandwidth, I propose you have a minimum upload rate of 25Mbps and a 190Mbps download rate. These rates should suffice for the usage of Teams and additional network-dependent activities; however, if you’d like the bare-minimum requirements, consider a download rate of 250Kbps and an upload rate of 500Kbps.
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