BJN Video Call Quality Issues

We rarely achieve the stated 720p @ 1024kbps max that BJN can offer. Additionally, we just asked BJN support to up the bandwidth cap for our desktops to 4Mbps. Still, we can't achieve anything close to the max quality. 

Most of my calls are 640x360 and max out at 400kbps. You're probably thinking it's my internet connection. Well if 538Mbps download and 308Mbps upload with a 3ms ping isn't fast enough, then we have a huge issue. I also tested this on our secondary internet connection which is 200Mbps/200Mbps. I'll also note that all other parties in these calls have had >100Mbps for both upload and download. 



Now, on to hardware. I have a brand new MacBook Pro 13" Retina with a 2.9Ghz i5 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. I have tried both the internal FaceTime Camera (720p) and an external Logitech BCC950 Conference Cam, I have still only been able to achieve 640x360 @ 400kbps. All other participants on these calls have had Logitech BCC950, a Logitech C930e, or a MacBook FaceTime Camera (720p). Additionally, they were all using a MacMini (2013 or later), MacBook Air 13" (2014 or later), MacBook Pro 13" (2014 or later) or MacBook Pro 15" (2014 or later). 

BlueJeans, what's going on here? Maybe we need to clue in @krishramakrishnan here. Everytime your account reps call us, it's perfect. Then after we get off the call with you and try to videoconference internally, it's bad quality again. 

We are not the only ones who have noted this problem. Take a look at this research study from Wainhouse Research published on Internet2. You'll note that on page 10 under "Connection Quality" it says:

Connection Quality – in general, all of our test calls provided acceptable video and audio quality. However, we did note that in some cases, the video resolution used was less than optimal given the systems in use and network conditions. For example, when connected with a web browser from our MacBook Air (Intel Core i5 processor with 10+ Mbps of Internet bandwidth), the maximum outgoing video resolution achieved was 640 x 360. With competing systems, this same notebook provided 720p or higher outgoing video. BJN is apparently working on this issue. Similarly, while connecting with a web browser from our Windows 7 test system (Intel Core i7), we noted that the call quality would increase and decrease significantly without any apparent reason. During one test call, the resolution increased 6-fold from 512 x 288 to 720p and then back again.