How do I use the Twilio network test to troubleshoot Talk agent calls?

Question

I followed the Zendesk Talk troubleshooting steps and performed the Twilio network test. However, I'm not sure how to read the results. How do I use the Twilio network test to troubleshoot agent calls?

Answer

Most Talk or Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) issues come from the network's connection speed, stability, and quality. A fast connection isn't enough for real-time voice communication, as dropped packets or unstable connection can also cause issues.

Perform the Twilio network test to understand if your connection works. The test ensures you follow requirements, such as a proper network, open ports, browser support for calls, and wired headsets.

The Twilio network test is divided into two columns:

Twilio WebRTC Diagnostics

Log Output

Twilio WebRTC Diagnostics

The left column of the page contains general Pass or Fail diagnostics.

For all the above tests, you need to see the green Pass message. A red Fail message may indicate network issues, particularly if you get errors with UDP, TLS, or TCP.

If your agent works from an office environment, those errors can happen because something is blocked. Ensure that your network team follows the Talk network requirements, opened the ports, and whitelisted IP addresses and domains.

If the agent uses a home network, ensure they don't have a special setup or a router that blocks ports. Additional investigation of their network may be required.

Note: You can ignore any tests below Voice: Test call using Opus.

Log Output

The right column of the Twilio network test contains the Log Output.

Note: You can ignore the error, Group Room failed: No stats were able to be recorded.

The above screenshot refers to the elements below:

Ensure that the logs below appear in green. Red indicates a problem:

A) Successfully established a UDP connection to Twilio in ___ ms

B) Successfully established a TCP connection to Twilio in ___ ms

C) Successfully established a TLS connection to Twilio in ___ ms

D) Ensure that even though you may successfully pass the bandwidth test, the results are much higher than the example above. In there, the results represent the lowest threshold in which Talk works reliably.

Note: The numbers in the test are the lowest threshold for Talk.

E) Check the Twilio Client connected to audit and ensure that you're connected to the right endpoint. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) may connect you to the wrong endpoint, for example, if you're in Germany, but the log shows that you're connected to a US endpoint. Connection to the wrong endpoint causes latency. Twilio decides the best route to take, but a VPN may hide the agent's actual location or region. The region can be as follows: au1, br1, de1, ie1, jp1, sg1, us1. For the latest information about regions from Twilio, see Legacy Regions.

F) The RTT (Round Trip Time) ideally should be at 150ms or less. The higher the RTT value, the poorer quality the call is likely to get.

G) The Jitter audit shouldn't be more than 20ms. A high jitter can cause delays.

H) Packet Loss indicates unstable connection. Even a 1% packet loss can cause call issues.