Table 5.
Frequency and duration of breakdowns and latency issues in video consultations.
| Type of problem | Frequencya | Duration (range) | ||||
| Audio or video breakdown at the start of a consultation | ||||||
|
|
No sound at the start | |||||
|
|
|
Unsolved: clinician calls the patient on the phone using Skype for video | 3 | 6.5 to 9.5 min | ||
|
|
|
Solved: after disconnecting and reconnecting, the sound works | 2 | 53 to 127 seconds | ||
|
|
No video at the start | |||||
|
|
|
Unsolved: camera does not work and participants make do with audio only | 1 | 5 min and 5 seconds | ||
|
|
|
Solved: either participant had forgotten to turn on the camera | 8 | 6.8 to 22.3 seconds | ||
| Audio or video breakdown during a video consultation | ||||||
|
|
Garbled sound: the quality of the sound suddenly degrades, causing a problem with audibility, the consultation is halted, participants check when the audio works, and then resume the consultation | 24 | 3.7 to 56.8 seconds | |||
|
|
Bad audio throughout: the quality of the audio is poor because of technical problems, causing frequent noise or low volume | 3 | Continuousb | |||
|
|
Video cutout: the video briefly cuts out on one side, before automatically resuming; may happen because of an incoming call | 2 | 1.4 to 8.4 seconds | |||
|
|
Bad video throughout: the quality of the video is poor because of a bad internet connection, causing the image to blur, freeze, or even cut out completely | 1 | Continuousb | |||
| Breakdown in connection during a video consultation | ||||||
|
|
Automatically solved: the connection cuts out briefly, but resumes automatically; participants briefly discuss and check if the connection works before resuming | 2 | 6.1 to 15.4 seconds | |||
|
|
Requiring reconnection: the connection is dropped completely and participants have to redial to get the connection back | 3 | 43.5 to 71.9 seconds | |||
| Latency | ||||||
|
|
Brief overlap: participants talk at the same time, but either drops out after 1 or 2 syllables of overlapping talk | 122 | Up to 0.5 seconds | |||
|
|
Competition for turn: participants talk in overlap for a while, using multiple explicit strategies to figure out whose turn it is | 29 | 0.5 to 10.5 seconds | |||
aReporting the number of problems we identified in the dataset relating to latency and breakdowns.
bIt is not possible to report exact duration as there were problems, either with audio or video, throughout. This results in continuous issues.