Avoiding Technical Issues when delivering a Webinar
As a Virtual Assistant who helps many of my clients moderate their Webinars I have had to deal with quite a variety of technical issues. Some of them are easily avoidable. If it seems you are having trouble connecting or staying connected to the Webinar or if your connection seems really slow check for the following conditions.
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Make sure you are the only user in the house using the Internet during class times.
This is especially true for Dial-up and Satellite connections where the connections have a low throughput or latency.
The other computers can use enough bandwidth to cause class disconnects in a vast majority of cases.
Even with a fast Internet connection (DSL, Cable, etc.) other users in the house can use enough bandwidth to cause your Webinar tool to disconnect from the class especially if they are sending or receiving data . If there are other computers in the home which are turned on and are connected to the Internet, try shutting them all down except the one that is being used for the Webinar.
If it does, you found the problem. If not, check for other solutions below. -
Make sure you are not uploading or downloading anything on the Internet.
For the best Webinar experience you should NOT be uploading or downloading music, movies or anything else during the session.Never, Never, Never have a file sharing program* running while in class!
File sharing programs saturate the network connection which does not allow enough bandwidth for Webinar sessions to operate properly.
*Examples of file sharing programs are: BitTorrent, Gnutella, eDonkey, Freenet, etc. -
Using a wireless connection.
Many devices such as microwaves, cordless phones, security cameras, Amateur radio and baby monitors can cause significant interference with wireless routers causing delays and loss of data transmission. (See this article in Wikipedia for details on advantages and disadvantages of Wi-Fi).
If the computer is using a wireless connection, try plugging it directly into one of the ports on the router or going directly to the modem with a wire to see if that solves the problem.
If you must use a wireless router, make sure it is secured to prevent others in the area from accessing the Internet using your wireless signal, commonly called Piggybacking, which will reduce your available bandwidth and degrade the performance.
Also see:
Wikipedia article on Wireless Security -
Having many unnecessary programs running on the computer.
Running numerous programs at the same time can cause the CPU to run at full capacity and may not give the Webinar tool enough time to process the voice and presentation data properly which will effectively cause delays and thus disconnections.
Try closing all programs that are not needed for the class to see if that corrects the disconnection issue.
In some cases, programs can appear to be closed but have actually become unresponsive so re-starting the computer may be necessary to ensure all programs are closed before trying to connect again.
If you use a Virtual Assistant to help you with your Webinars make sure they understand many of the technical issues that can come up and have contingency plans to deal with them. But, at least, checking the items above should help you stay connected to whatever Webinar tool you choose.
Best,
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