Microsoft Teams just fixed one of the most annoying connectivity issues
Microsoft Teams says it will end communication problems caused by sudden and momentary drops in internet connection thanks to a new solution based on artificial intelligence video conferencing software.
In a demonstration on Microsoft Teams blog (opens in a new tab)Microsoft said its new machine learning model builds on an existing technique it calls “Packet Loss Concealment” (PLC), which involves “making assumptions about missing content” when the connection drops while the other party talks.
It was also argued that the AI model can predict “up to 80 consecutive milliseconds of audio”, which is a significant improvement over PLC implementations not supported by AI. This is said to make packet loss undetectable to users.
“Undetectable” quality drops
It’s a bold statement, and while the early post-release feedback is positive (users report packet loss detections 15% less frequently) and the demos are certainly audible, there is always room for improvement.
This improvement may come sooner than expected as Microsoft has demonstrated a commitment to making this technology available to researchers and developers around the world.
For the event at INTERSPEECH speech technology conference (opens in a new tab) earlier this month, Microsoft’s “open source network traces” [it] Collected “and” PLC Feedback Average Model “so that others can integrate an existing dataset, built on more than 600 hours of audio analysis, into their work.
Perhaps we shouldn’t expect miracles – Microsoft itself noted that it can’t improve the stability of the external network – but this should somewhat reduce the frustration of sudden disconnections that cut off sentences that plague the world. hybrid work since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It should also mean that improved PLC implementations will become more common on the web in the future, as users looking to improve connection quality are not blocked from Microsoft Teams.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Teams users on Windows can already take advantage of the enhancements that are designed to only work when necessary to reduce CPU load. Microsoft said rollout for Mac and mobile devices is also on the way.