8 Microsoft Teams Network Requirements
Microsoft Teams Network Requirements and Teams Application Requirements
If you’re rolling out MS Teams quickly as your first Microsoft 365 or Office 365 workload to support Remote Workers – check the following before you begin your Teams rollout.
Do all your locations have internet access (so they can connect to Microsoft 365 or Office 365)? Internet Access is one of the key Microsoft Teams network requirements.
Microsoft Teams network assessment tool – Microsoft 365 Network Connectivity Test
You can get more details on Microsoft Teams network assessment tool (also referred to as Microsoft 365 Network Connectivity Test) from here: https://connectivity.office.com/
Microsoft 365 Network Connectivity Test is a proof of concept (POC) network assessment tool that runs basic connectivity tests against your Microsoft 365 tenant and makes specific network design recommendations for optimal Microsoft 365 performance. The tool highlights common large enterprise network perimeter design choices which are useful for Internet web browsing but impact the performance of large SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365.
The Network Onboarding tool does the following:
- Detects your location, or you can specify a location to test.
- Checks the location of your network egress.
- Tests the network path to the nearest Microsoft 365 service front door.
- Provides advanced tests using a downloadable Windows 10 application that makes perimeter network design recommendations related to proxy servers, firewalls, and DNS.
- The tool also runs performance tests for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online and Exchange Online.
Microsoft Teams endpoints classed in the Optimize Endpoints category
Microsoft Teams, as well as other core Microsoft 365 / Office 365 workloads like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Skype for Business Online are classed into the Optimize Endpoints category.
Other Microsoft Teams network requirements are Optimize Endpoints which are required for connectivity to every Office 365 service.
Optimize Endpoints represent over 75% of Office 365 bandwidth, connections, and volume of data. These endpoints represent Office 365 scenarios that are the most sensitive to network performance, latency, and availability. All endpoints are hosted in Microsoft datacenters.
Assessing Microsoft 365 network connectivity https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/assessing-network-connectivity?view=o365-worldwide
Microsoft Teams Network Requirements – Microsoft Teams IP Addresses and Ports
At a minimum, in addition to normal web traffic (ports 80 and 443), make sure you’ve opened the following firewall ports, for all locations, for media in Microsoft Teams:
| Network Property | Network Property Settings |
|---|---|
| Normal Web Traffic | TCP Ports: 80 and 443 |
| Ports | UDP ports: 3478, 3479, 3480, 3481 |
| IP addresses | 13.107.64.0/18, 52.112.0.0/14, and 52.120.0.0/14 |
You can get more information on Microsoft Teams firewall ports from here.
Microsoft Teams Network Requirements – Configure your Custom Domains for Use with your Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Tenant
- Do you have a verified domain for Microsoft 365 or Office 365 (for example, contoso.com)?
- If your organization hasn’t rolled out Microsoft 365 or Office 365, see Get started.
- If your organization hasn’t added or configured a verified domain for Microsoft 365 or Office 365, see the Domains FAQ.
Important
If you need to federate with Skype for Business, either on-premises or online, you will need to configure some additional DNS records for your Vanity Domain.
| CNAME Records / Host name | TTL | Points to address or value |
|---|---|---|
| sip | 3600 | sipdir.online.lync.com |
| lyncdiscover | 3600 | webdir.online.lync.com |
Teams Application Requirements – Microsoft Teams Applications Requirements
- Has your organization deployed Exchange Online and SharePoint Online?
- If your organization doesn’t have Exchange Online, see Understand how Exchange and Microsoft Teams interact.
- If your organization doesn’t have SharePoint Online, see Understand how SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business interact with Microsoft Teams.
Important
Running on-premises Skype for Business Server: If your organization is running on-premises Skype for Business Server (or Lync Server), you must configure Azure AD Connect to synchronize your on-premises Active Directory with Microsoft 365 or Office 365.
Once you’ve verified that you meet these network and application requirements, you may be ready to Roll out Teams. If you’re a large multinational enterprise, or if you know you’ve got some network limitations, read on to learn how to assess and optimize your network for Microsoft Teams.
Best practice: Monitor your network using CQD and Call Analytics
Use the Call Quality Dashboard (CQD) to gain insight into the quality of calls and meetings in Teams. CQD can help you optimize your network by keeping a close eye on quality, reliability, and the user experience. CQD looks at aggregate telemetry for an entire organization where overall patterns can become apparent, which lets you identify problems and plan remediation. Additionally, CQD provides rich metrics reports that provide insight into overall quality, reliability, and user experience.
You’ll use call analytics to investigate call and meeting problems for an individual user.
Microsoft Teams Network Requirements – Network optimization
The following tasks are optional and aren’t required for rolling out Teams, especially if you’re a small business and you’ve already rolled out Microsoft 365 or Office 365. Use this guidance to optimize your network and Teams performance or if you know you’ve got some network limitations.
You might want to do additional network optimization if:
- Teams runs slowly (maybe you have insufficient bandwidth)
- Calls keep dropping (might be due to firewall or proxy blockers)
- Calls have static and cut out, or voices sound like robots (could be jitter or packet loss)
- How to improve MS Teams performance on Windows PC?
For an in-depth discussion of network optimization, including guidance for identifying and fixing network impairments, read Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Network Connectivity Principles.
| Network optimization task | Details |
|---|---|
| External Name Resolution | Be sure that all computers running the Teams client can resolve external DNS queries to discover the services provided by Microsoft 365 or Office 365 and that your firewalls are not preventing access. For information about configuring firewall ports, go to Microsoft 365 and Office 365 URLs and IP ranges. |
| Advisor for Teams | Advisor for Teams is part of the Teams admin center. It assesses your Microsoft 365 or Office 365 environment and identifies the most common configurations that you may need to update or modify before you can successfully roll out Teams. |
| Network planner | For help assessing your network, including bandwidth calculations and network requirements across your org’s physical locations, check out the Network Planner tool, in the Teams admin center. When you provide your network details and Teams usage, the Network Planner calculates your network requirements for deploying Teams and cloud voice across your organization’s physical locations. For an example scenario, see Using Network Planner – example scenario. |
| Maintain session persistence | Make sure your firewall doesn’t change the mapped Network Address Translation (NAT) addresses or ports for UDP. |
| Validate NAT pool size | Validate the network address translation (NAT) pool size required for user connectivity. When multiple users and devices access Microsoft 365 or Office 365 using Network Address Translation (NAT) or Port Address Translation (PAT), you need to ensure that the devices hidden behind each publicly routable IP address do not exceed the supported number. Ensure that adequate public IP addresses are assigned to the NAT pools to prevent port exhaustion. Port exhaustion will contribute to internal users and devices being unable to connect to the Microsoft 365 or Office 365 service. |
| Routing to Microsoft data centers | Implement the most efficient routing to Microsoft data centers. Identify locations that can use local or regional egress points to connect to the Microsoft network as efficiently as possible. |
| Intrusion Detection and Prevention Guidance | If your environment has an Intrusion Detection or Prevention System (IDS/IPS) deployed for an extra layer of security for outbound connections, be sure to allow all Microsoft 365 or Office 365 URLs. |
| Configure split-tunnel VPN | We recommend that you provide an alternate path for Teams traffic that bypasses the virtual private network (VPN), commonly known as split-tunnel VPN. Split tunneling means that traffic for Microsoft 365 or Office 365 doesn’t go through the VPN but instead goes directly to Microsoft 365 or Office 365. Bypassing your VPN will have a positive impact on Teams quality, and it reduces load from the VPN devices and the organization’s network. To implement a split-tunnel VPN, work with your VPN vendor. Other reasons why Microsoft recommends bypassing the VPN: VPNs are typically not designed or configured to support real-time media. Some VPNs might also not support UDP (which is required for Teams). VPNs also introduce an extra layer of encryption on top of media traffic that’s already encrypted. Connectivity to Teams might not be efficient due to hair-pinning traffic through a VPN device. |
| Optimize WiFi | Similar to VPN, WiFi networks aren’t necessarily designed or configured to support real-time media. Planning for, or optimizing, a Wi-Fi network to support Teams is an important consideration for a high-quality deployment. Consider these factors: Implement QoS or Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) to ensure that media traffic is getting prioritized appropriately over your Wi-Fi networks. Plan and optimize the Wi-Fi bands and access point placement. The 2.4 GHz range might provide an adequate experience depending on access point placement, but access points are often affected by other consumer devices that operate in that range. The 5 GHz range is better suited to real-time media due to its dense range, but it requires more access points to get sufficient coverage. Endpoints also need to support that range and be configured to leverage those bands accordingly. If you’re using dual-band WI-FI networks, consider implementing band steering. Band steering is a technique implemented by Wi-Fi vendors to influence dual-band clients to use the 5 GHz range. When access points of the same channel are too close together, they can cause signal overlap and unintentionally compete, resulting in a bad experience for the user. Ensure that access points that are next to each other are on channels that don’t overlap. Each wireless vendor has its own recommendations for deploying its wireless solution. Consult your Wi-Fi vendor for specific guidance. |
| Implement QoS | Use Quality of Service (QoS) to configure packet prioritization. This will improve call quality in Teams and help you monitor and troubleshoot call quality. QoS should be implemented on all segments of a managed network. Even when a network has been adequately provisioned for bandwidth, QoS provides risk mitigation in the event of unanticipated network events. With QoS, voice traffic is prioritized so that these unanticipated events don’t negatively affect quality. |
Microsoft Teams Network Requirements – Bandwidth requirements
Microsoft Teams is designed to give the best audio, video, and content sharing experience regardless of your network conditions. That said, when bandwidth is insufficient, Teams prioritizes audio quality over video quality.
Where bandwidth isn’t limited, Teams optimizes media quality, including up to 1080p video resolution, up to 30fps for video and 15fps for content, and high-fidelity audio.
This table describes how Teams uses bandwidth. Teams is always conservative on bandwidth utilization and can deliver HD video quality in under 1.2Mbps. The actual bandwidth consumption in each audio/video call or meeting will vary based on several factors, such as video layout, video resolution, and video frames per second. When more bandwidth is available, quality and usage will increase to deliver the best experience.
| Bandwidth(up/down) | Scenarios |
|---|---|
| 30 kbps | Peer-to-peer audio calling |
| 130 kbps | Peer-to-peer audio calling and screen sharing |
| 500 kbps | Peer-to-peer quality video calling 360p at 30fps |
| 1.2 Mbps | Peer-to-peer HD quality video calling with resolution of HD 720p at 30fps |
| 1.5 Mbps | Peer-to-peer HD quality video calling with resolution of HD 1080p at 30fps |
| 500kbps/1Mbps | Group Video calling |
| 1Mbps/2Mbps | HD Group video calling (540p videos on 1080p screen) |
You may also want to check out the Topics below which give further information on Microsoft Teams network requirements!
- Identity models and authentication in Teams
- How to roll out Teams
- Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Network Connectivity Principles
- Worldwide endpoints: Skype for Business Online and Teams
- Proxy servers for Teams
- Media in Teams: Why meetings are simple
- Media in Teams: Deep dive into media flows
- Teams Troubleshooting
- Microsoft Teams Web app
