The Microsoft Teams network assessment tool is a set of tools and processes used to evaluate whether a network can reliably support Teams voice and video workloads, based on real performance metrics.
Microsoft Teams is now a critical business platform, not just a collaboration tool. Voice, video, meetings, webinars, contact centres, and AI-assisted collaboration all rely on one thing working properly underneath: the network.
Hybrid and remote working are no longer exceptions. They are the norm. While IT teams cannot control every home broadband connection or public Wi-Fi network, they can take responsibility for office locations, corporate WANs, Wi-Fi design, internet breakouts, and cloud connectivity.
A Microsoft Teams network assessment gives you the evidence you need to understand whether your network is fit for purpose today, and where it needs to evolve next. In this blog, we talk about the important areas that help you conduct a thorough Microsoft Teams network assessment.
How much internet bandwidth does Microsoft Teams actually use?
Teams’ bandwidth consumption depends entirely on how it’s used. Audio-only calls, video meetings, screen sharing, multi-camera layouts, and live events all place very different demands on the network.
Bandwidth is often described as “speed”, but what matters more is consistent capacity per user, especially during peak periods.
Microsoft publishes recommended bandwidth figures per activity. These are per user, per session, and should be treated as planning values rather than averages.
You need to conduct two exercises to work out how much internet Microsoft Teams uses in your organisation.
Understand Teams bandwidth requirements per activity
Start by mapping how Teams is used in your organisation. Consider audio calls, video meetings, screen sharing, webinars, and Teams Phone workloads. Microsoft provides the following figures for bandwidth requirements:
Estimate the number of concurrent Teams users
Concurrency is not your total headcount. It’s the number of people likely to use bandwidth-intensive Teams features simultaneously in the same location.
For example:
500 staff in an office
100 users concurrently in HD group video meetings
Up to ~2 Mbps per user
That single office could require ~200 Mbps of sustained, uncontended internet capacity for Teams alone during peak periods.
Teams number of users
Real-world usage is often lower, but designing for worst-case scenarios prevents poor experiences during all-hands meetings, training sessions, or hybrid events.
Where precise figures are unknown, organisations typically take one of two approaches:
User behaviour surveys
Questionnaires that capture time of day, call frequency, meeting size, and screen-sharing habits.
Network and call analytics
Platform-level reporting that shows real bandwidth usage, active users, and peak demand by hour, subnet, or location.
The second option is far more accurate and scalable, particularly in larger or distributed estates.
Teams users
Microsoft Teams network requirements
Most enterprise networks were not originally designed for always-on video collaboration. Unless your network has been refreshed in the last few years, it is worth revisiting core assumptions around bandwidth, routing, and traffic prioritisation.
Microsoft’s guidance for Teams remains clear and consistent:
Provide direct internet access for Teams media traffic
Avoid unnecessary backhauling through data centres
Ensure correct firewall rules, ports, and URLs are allowed
Verify Microsoft 365 domains
Optimise Wi-Fi design for high-density real-time media
These fundamentals matter more today than ever, particularly as Teams usage expands into shared spaces, meeting rooms, and AI-enabled workloads.
Internet access (web traffic and media) for all locations that need to use Teams, should also be enabled. In more complex, multi-site environments, organisations may consider technologies such as SD-WAN for Teams performance, which can optimise traffic routing, prioritise real-time communications, and reduce latency by directing Teams traffic along the most efficient network paths.
The modern Teams client is significantly more efficient than earlier versions, but efficiency does not remove the need for solid network design.
How do I test Microsoft Teams connectivity?
Microsoft provides a cloud-based network connectivity test that validates your connection to Microsoft 365 and Teams services.
The test:
Measures latency, packet loss, and jitter
Identifies suboptimal routing
Highlights DNS, proxy, or firewall issues
Tests against Microsoft’s global edge network
Results are presented in a clear summary with drill-down detail, allowing you to compare locations and identify problem areas.
M365 network connectivity
This test is best used as a baseline, particularly when assessing new sites, new circuits, or major network changes.
How do I troubleshoot Microsoft Teams connectivity?
If test results indicate issues, remediation typically follows a layered approach:
Address network findings first
Routing inefficiencies, Wi-Fi contention, packet loss, or insufficient bandwidth.
Validate device and endpoint health
Operating system, drivers, headset, or camera certification.
Use local OS troubleshooting tools
Particularly useful for identifying DNS or adapter misconfiguration.
If issues persist after these steps, deeper Teams-specific testing is usually required. This is where the investigation moves beyond basic connectivity and into Teams telemetry, call quality data and media path analysis.
Typical checks include reviewing Call Analytics for affected users, using Call Quality Dashboard to identify site or subnet-level trends, validating packet loss, jitter and round-trip time, and confirming whether Teams media is taking the expected route to Microsoft’s network. In many cases, the root cause is not a single failure but a combination of factors such as Wi-Fi contention, VPN hairpinning, blocked UDP traffic, poor endpoint hardware, or incorrect network breakout.
This deeper analysis helps determine whether the problem is user-specific, device-specific, network-specific, or related to the wider Teams voice and meeting configuration.
Microsoft Teams network assessment tools
Microsoft provides a Teams network assessment tool that is available to download from the Microsoft website. Once downloaded, you can run a simple test to determine how well your network would perform for Microsoft Teams calls.
The test connects to two Teams servers deployed in the Microsoft Azure network and can test for two key areas: network performance and network connectivity.
Network performance applies to Teams calls only. Network connectivity verifies network elements between the test location and the Microsoft Network.
Microsoft Teams network testing companion
The network testing companion extends this capability further by validating:
Microsoft-certified devices
Operating system configuration
Local internet performance
Results are presented as pass or fail indicators, allowing administrators to focus quickly on problem areas rather than raw metrics.
Network testing companion results
Call Quality Dashboard (CQD)
The Call Quality Dashboard (CQD) is built into the Teams Admin Center and provides detailed telemetry across devices, networks, locations, and media streams. You can access this from the Microsoft Teams Admin Center by going to Analytics & reports and selecting Call quality dashboard.
You’ll need the appropriate Teams admin permissions, and CQD typically opens in a separate dashboard view for deeper call quality and network telemetry.
Call Quality Dashboard
CQD is invaluable for understanding patterns and trends, but it requires time and familiarity to interpret effectively. It also focuses primarily on reporting rather than proactive remediation.
For organisations that want to move beyond investigation and into prevention, additional tooling is often required.
Advanced Teams call and meeting analytics
Microsoft Teams provides rich call and meeting telemetry through native tools such as Call Analytics and Call Quality Dashboard. These are useful for investigation, but many organisations need a more operational view of the data, especially when managing multiple sites, hybrid working patterns, complex networks or high-volume voice environments.
Nasstar partners with organisations such as Code Software, who provide the Advanced analytics platform, Clobba Flex, which builds on Microsoft Teams data to provide clearer visibility across voice performance, user activity, Call Queues, Auto Attendants, and operational trends. Clobba Flex provides real-time and historical analytics for Teams call handling, including insight into Auto Attendants, Call Queues, and agent performance.
These platforms can help provide:
Clear visibility of jitter, latency, and packet loss by location
Bandwidth consumption trends and peak usage forecasting
Device compliance insights
Real-time and historical reporting
Call queue and auto attendant performance visibility
Agent and user activity insights
Custom dashboards for different operational roles
Automated alerts or reporting when thresholds are breached
The key difference is actionability.
CQD can help show where quality issues are occurring. Tools such as Clobba Flex help make that data easier to consume operationally, particularly for service owners, supervisors and IT teams who need to understand live performance, historical trends and where action may be required. Code Software describes Clobba as providing insights into user adoption trends, call quality, employee productivity, call expenditure, and wider Microsoft Teams usage.
In practice, this can help teams:
Identify struggling subnets, sites, or Wi-Fi zones
Understand when and where capacity is being exceeded
Monitor call queue demand, missed calls, abandoned calls, and response times
Spot device, user, or location patterns that need attention
Support service reviews with clearer reporting
Plan more confidently for return-to-office, expansion, or new Teams Phone deployments
Used correctly, analytics turn Teams network assessment from a reactive troubleshooting task into an ongoing operational capability.
CQD
How to perform a Microsoft Teams network assessment
A Teams network assessment should give you clear answers, not just metrics. The goal is to understand whether your network can support real-world Teams usage, where the risks are, and what to fix first. A simple, repeatable approach works best.
How to perform a network assessment
Define scope and success criteria
Start by agreeing on what “good” looks like for your organisation and sites.
As a practical baseline:
Round-Trip Time (RTT/Latency): Ideally < 100ms for optimal experience
Packet Loss: Ideally < 1% over 15s intervals
Jitter: The variation in delay between packets should be < 30 ms
Packet Reorder Ratio: Should be < 0.05%
Teams Network Assessment - Define Scope
Also note the site type (HQ, branch, contact centre), access method (Wi-Fi vs wired), and internet breakout model, as these strongly influence results.
Run baseline synthetic testing
Use silent call testing in the Teams Admin Center to simulate Teams calls without real users.
Run tests:
Once during quieter periods (baseline)
Once during peak hours (worst case)
After any network change
This validates routing, latency, jitter, and packet loss to Microsoft’s edge before user devices are involved.
The image below shows a Silent Test Call dashboard, used to identify poor audio quality patterns across locations, subnets, devices, transport protocols, and connection types before users start reporting issues.
Teams Network Assessment - Baseline Testing
Analyse real Teams call quality data
Combine synthetic testing with real telemetry from:
Call Quality Dashboard (CQD)
Teams Admin Center call analytics
Other third-party tools such as Clobba Flex, Nasstar’s preferred UC analytics and call quality monitoring platform
Look for patterns by site, subnet, and time of day, and compare Wi-Fi vs wired performance. This helps distinguish network issues from device- or user-specific problems.
Validate LAN and Wi-Fi performance
Many Teams issues occur inside the building, not on the internet link.
Check for:
Oversubscribed uplinks or underpowered edge switches
Wi-Fi congestion, interference, or poor roaming
High-density meeting spaces with insufficient coverage
Understand and interpret the outputs
Most tools present results via dashboards, CSV exports, or graphs. Focus on trends and spikes, not just averages.
Example interpretations:
High jitter (> 30 ms): often Wi-Fi contention or queuing on busy links
Packet loss (> 1%): commonly cabling faults, Wi-Fi interference, or overloaded firewalls
High RTT (> 150 ms): inefficient routing or unnecessary backhauling
Each finding should lead directly to a corrective action.
Retest and operationalise
After making changes, rerun the same tests to prove improvement.
Long term, treat network assessment as ongoing:
Scheduled silent call tests
Threshold-based alerting
Regular CQD reviews by site and peak period
This turns Teams network assessment from a one-off exercise into a continuous quality assurance process.
When should you engage a Microsoft Teams network assessment partner?
If Teams is becoming business critical, a network assessment can help you stay ahead of performance issues before they impact users. Whether you're rolling out Teams Phone, expanding to new sites, supporting hybrid working, or tackling ongoing call quality problems, specialist expertise can help you identify risks and prioritise the right improvements.
Talk to Nasstar about a Microsoft Teams network assessment and make sure your network is ready for what's next.
