How much bandwidth does TeamSpeak require?

This heavily depends on how many people are connected to your server, how many people join the same channel (chat room) and which voice codec is used. This makes it very difficult to predict how much bandwidth or traffic your TeamSpeak 3 server will require.

Basics:

• Each person speaking sends one voice stream to the server
• The server decides based on who's in the same channel to whom the stream has to be sent.
• If 12 persons in the same channel speak at the same time, the server receives 12 voice streams and sends 12 voice streams to every one in the same channel.
• The server does not mix the voice streams.
• The server sends a heartbeat packet (66 Bytes) to each client each second which answers with a packet (62 Bytes).

The bandwidth and traffic requirement is depending on:

• The amount of channels and users
• Selected codec in the channels
• People speaking at the same time in same/different channel
• The server's uptime

This FAQ can only show you how you can calculate the bandwidth/traffic requirement for your server as only you know your specific setup and how often and how long people will talk on your server.

Bandwidth calculation for the server
We'll divide this into several examples which hopeful explain the calculation somewhat better. The first is a simple example we'll explain a little bit more in detail. For each example we use the following syntax:

DOWN: people_speaking_atm * selected_codec
UP: people_speaking_atm * (people_in_channel - 1) * selected_codec

The following would be a server with one channel set to Speex 25.9, 10 people in the only channel and one person is speaking:

DOWN: 1 * 25.9 Kbit/s = 25.9 Kbit/s
UP: 1 * (10 - 1) * 25.9 Kbit/s = 233.1 Kbit/s

As you see in this example, the DOWN bandwidth is usually not a problem but the UP bandwidth can be one - especially with home Internet access as they usually have asymmetric bandwidth where the DOWN bandwidth is much higher then the UP bandwidth.

Here's another example with one channel set to Speex 12.3, 10 people in the only channel and two persons are speaking:

DOWN: 1 * 12.3 Kbit/s = 12.3 Kbit/s
UP: 2 * (10 - 1) * 12.3 Kbit/s = 221.4 Kbit/s

The last example shows how the bandwidth requirement explodes when more then one people are speaking at the same time. In TeamSpeak 2 there is no setting to stop simultaneous speaking.

Client bandwidth calculation
Lets look at the bandwidth requirement for the client. We'll explain this by looking at the two examples above. UP and DOWN bandwidth are now contrary when looking at the client. We always assume that the client we are looking at is the one or one of the speaking person. If he is listening, there is only DOWN bandwidth required.

DOWN: 0 * 12.3 Kbit/s = 0 Kbit/s
UP: 1 * 12.3 Kbit/s = 12.3 Kbit/s

DOWN: 2 * 12.3 Kbit/s = 24.6 Kbit/s
UP: 1 * 12.3 Kbit/s = 12.3 Kbit/s

Bandwidth requirement for the client are usually not a big issue, unless you're in a Speex 25.9 channel with an analog Internet access. But when hosting a server at home, you have to be aware, that especially the UP bandwidth is the limiting factor.

Keep in mind, that a game or other application you run in parallel to TeamSpeak requires as well bandwidth and with several open connections you can not use 100% of your bandwidth. The connection quality will decrease which will be easily heard in a time sensitive application such as a voice-communication tool.