VOIP (Voice over IP) and video conferencing applications like Zoom, Google Meet, and GoToMeeting encounter video or sound quality issues

Configure the Firewall for Video Conferencing and VoIP Applications

To improve video and sound quality in your video conferencing and Voice Over IP (VoIP) applications, you can configure Traffic Management in Application Control to maximize performance. You can also add Quality of Service (QoS) markings to the traffic to ensure that it is given the highest possible priority.

Before you begin, if you have multiple external interfaces, make sure that you enable link monitoring to monitor the status of your interfaces for loss, latency, and jitter. The quality of external interfaces can affect the quality of the VoIP and video conferencing experience. If an interface degrades, configure the network to fail over to an interface that is working better. For more information, see About Link Monitor in WatchGuard Help Center.

Application Control Traffic Management

Application Control is a WatchGuard subscription service that enables you to monitor and control the use of applications on your network. You can use Application Control with Traffic Management to increase the bandwidth used by Voice Over IP (VoIP) applications such as Zoom, Google Meet, GoToMeeting, Skype, and Microsoft Teams.

Note: If you apply a Traffic Management action to an application category, such as VoIP services, the bandwidth settings are shared for all applications in the category.

To use a Traffic Management action for an application:

1. Enable Traffic Management. For more information, see About Traffic Management and QoS.
2. Create a Traffic Management policy. For more information, see Define a Traffic Management Action.
3. Create or edit an Application Control action. For more information, see Configure Application Control Actions.
4. Select the application you want to control.
5. Click Edit.
6. Set the action for all behaviors or specific behaviors to Allow.
7. Select the Traffic Management check box.
8. From the adjacent drop-down list, select the Traffic Management action to use for allowed traffic for this application or category. For more information, see Use Traffic Management with Application Control.

Note: After you configure an Application Control action to use Traffic Management, make sure that you configure policies that handle traffic for the applications to use the Application Control action. For more information, see Configure Application Control for Policies.
 

Quality of Service Marking

Networks handle many types of traffic that compete for bandwidth. All traffic has an equal chance to reach its destination in a timely manner. You can use Quality of Service (QoS) marking to give VoIP and video conferencing traffic preferential treatment to make sure it is delivered quickly and reliably. 

For QoS to be effective, it should be enabled on all devices in the chain, starting from the client device, through each switch/router, and then prioritized at the end of the chain, by the Firebox. Before you enable QoS marking, contact your ISP to make sure that they support QoS marking. For more information, see About QoS Marking.
 

See Also

Use Traffic Management with Application Control
Traffic Management Examples
Enable QoS Marking and Prioritization in a Policy
Troubleshoot low throughput issues on a wireless network with Wi-Fi Cloud Best practices for VOIP of WLAN using Wi-Fi Cloud