Presenter internet connection determines how many attendees can hear?

[Mel-SoTSA]

We had a disastrous audio experience with a webinar today, with about 20% of attendees without audio and a conference line with no audio. Support rep said it was likely the two speakers internet connection. This is news to me. The number of attendees you can steam to is determined by your speakers internet connection?? Why even have a service like GoToWebinar then? I thought streaming was done from central server(s) and if folks are having problems it is their individual connections.  If we need to set up a streaming server sufficient for 1000 simultaneous connections, that should be covered in the minimum hardware specs. 

... and why only the audio affected and not the webcams?  Me thinks, the support rep doth try to blame too much.

[Chris Droessler]

If everyone could not hear the audio, then it might have been a problem with the presenter's computer or Internet connection.

But, that was not your case.  If 20 percent could not hear, then it was likely heavy Internet traffic that caused the problem.

What do you mean by "conference line with no audio."?

[Mel-SoTSA]

I checked conference line, as did GoTo rep during the webinar and there was no audio.  (It was not a webcast btw)

[AshC]

@Mel-SoTSA   You can avoid any internet problems by having your staff call directly in via telephone.  However, I'd add that when there are audio problems in a webinar it will affect all participants --- not just some.  We can always help you determine the root cause if the presenter's PC is available to examine, and you contact Customer Support within 24 hours of the live broadcast. 

[Chris Droessler]

By "conference line" do you mean a telephone line that was used to transmit the audio for the webinar?  or were there Attendees who were using a telephone and could not hear audio?

[Chris Droessler]

To clarify AshC's response, you can still have Internet problems if your presenter uses the telephone.  The Internet can affect individual Attendees ability to hear the audio.

It is possible to have audio problems affect some of the Participants and not all of them.  Mel-SoTSA  said that only 20 percent of the Attendees had audio issues.  To me, that seems to mean the Presenter was not the problem.

[Mel-SoTSA]

Thanks. Second tier support will be contacting me.   I don't understand, why the presenter computer?  Is all Organizer/Panelist audio going through the presenter?

I always use telephone for "my" webinars, but to equip all the staff with LandLines is probably not going to happen!

Wouldn't looking at attendee computers make sense? They had good video but no audio, so there is something besides internet bandwidth going on here, I think.

[AshC]

@Mel-SoTSA  Yes, if the connection issues are only affecting some participants, then we would like to know more about the details of their device and location before trying to identify the communication gap.