Our trials continue this week, with our focus shifting to specific applications and how they are affected by low latency networking.
This testing only applies if you have a Mac, iPhone, or iPad.
Our focus is on Apple’s FaceTime application, for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. We will need you to upgrade your device's operating system and then try Facetime while running a traffic generator from a Mac or Windows computer. Feel free to skip this test if it seems too complicated!
What we’re trying to see is whether your FaceTime experience is affected by high network traffic volume that is competing with FaceTime.
Apple released the latest operating systems in September 2023: iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS 14. You can upgrade to the latest OS in Settings / General / Software Update. Some old devices are not compatible with the latest OS (e.g. iPhone 8).
If your device is not compatible, skip this test.
You can download our traffic generation tool:
- MacOS - https://github.com/jlivingood/IETF-L4S-Deployment/blob/main/iperf3-GUI-macos-10102023-v2.zip
- Windows - https://github.com/jlivingood/IETF-L4S-Deployment/blob/main/iperf3-GUI-windows-x86_64-10102023-v2.exe
This tool will automatically generate load on your connection. It only runs for 5 minutes, during which you should run a Facetime call. On the Mac, you will likely need to give permission to this app in the System Settings / Security & Privacy, scroll down to Security and click “Open Anyway”.
- Have the traffic generator ready
- If you try FaceTime on Mac, you can run the traffic generator on that same Mac
- If you try FaceTime on iPhone or iPad, you can run the traffic generator on a Windows or Mac computer on the same router with the iPhone or iPad.
- Make a FaceTime call from your Apple device to ...
- A person/device that is not connected via your modem; an iPhone in your house on cellular service with Wi-Fi disabled will do
- A person/device with iOS 17, iPadOS 17 or macOS 14 if possible
- Ask the callee's OS version if possible
- During the call, run the traffic generator
- See if it affects your FaceTime experience
Submit this results form - https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/8f46b4a6ba2a4bf6a53a5dc47c979730
https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/c91c06bb97914742bdf54f25e294eb07
- FaceTime has ECN bleaching detection and it will stop marking traffic as ECT(1) if it doesn’t get CE marks for a reasonable amount of time.
- In case there is no bleaching and appropriate CE marks are generated by the network (so the trial is working as designed), if FaceTime doesn’t send ECT(1) traffic (verified via packet capture), then please file a bug with Apple using Feedback Assistant at https://feedbackassistant.apple.com.