[deweller]

Anecdotally I can say that Zoom has worked the best for us.

But no software can fix variances in bandwidth or latency. I wish there was a way to test a remote hire's internet connection quality. Lack of access to a good internet connection would be a deal breaker for a remote hire for us.

[hluska]

You know, I might have an idea for you. A few years ago, I built a diagnostics tool for a product whose primary users were using some absolutely horrible internet connections.

One of the most useful parts of it was timing http requests and tracking response times. We solved some very complicated technical support issues using this tool. Do you think it would be useful to adapt something like this to remote workers? It's weird because I've struggled with internet connections when I've worked with remote workers, but never thought of actually testing it until I read this comment...

[DoofusOfDeath]

I believe you about Zoom. Unfortunately that's the only kind of information I'm ever able to get on the topic: anecdotal.

I suspect the reality is that, amongst the best-performing services, which one works best depends on network QoS details, network topology, particular client hardware / OS, etc.

For example: some conferencing software seems to have a real problem with echo cancelation, so either (a) everyone needs mic/speaker hardware that sidesteps the issue, or (b) you accept that everyone will go insane.

Similarly, difference conferencing software has different solutions to people talking over each other accidentally due to latency. One product (Cisco's maybe?) has an icon for metaphorically raising one's hand to request a turn speaking.

[anitil]

We've been trying Zoom lately. Seems pretty good, though we always seem to have issues with everyone logging in to a call. Inevitably we have everyone slacking/texting/skyping out the call ID to just get up and running. After we're up though it all works smoothly