Microsoft Teams struggles with glitchy video calls as users return to work after Easter weekend
Welcome back to work, everyone! In a classic post-long weekend move, Microsoft Teams appears to be struggling this morning, leaving glum-eyed home workers feeling even more out of touch with their colleagues than usual.
The issues started at around 8am BST, according to the outage tracking website Down Detector, and they appear to mainly be affecting users based in the UK and the Netherlands.
Us chumps at Trusted Reviews are big fans of use Teams and, like some other users it seems, had to sit through a call with a very dodgy connection first thing this morning, with audio regularly glitching and fragments of sentences getting lost in the ether.
Related: How to use Microsoft Teams
At the time of publication, Microsoft is yet to officially acknowledge the issues, but we will cut Teams some slack.
This is the first time I’ve experienced any issues with Microsoft Teams in nearly a month, which for many people in the UK, was the first day they’d been made to work from home since the outbreak of Covid-19.
Furthermore, it hasn’t been dogged by the same criticisms that have been levelled at its newly famous rivals, Zoom and Houseparty.
Some Houseparty users have claimed that creating an account for the service has coincided with their accounts on other platforms, such as Spotify and Netflix, falling prey to hackers. Houseparty has denied any connection.
“All Houseparty accounts are safe − the service is secure, has never been compromised, and doesn’t collect passwords for other sites,” the company said when the allegations came to light at the end of March, and has even gone as far as offering a significant amount of money to anyone who can prove that the whole affair was “a paid commercial smear campaign”.
Related: Is Zoom safe?
Zoom, meanwhile, has dropped dropped the ball so many times over recent weeks, including falsely claiming calls were end-to-end encrypted and secretly sending users’ data to Facebook. However, it is now trying to fix its many issues.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
