The Importance of a Robust Network Infrastructure for Your AV System: Complete 2026 Technology Foundation Guide

Size your AV (audio and video) network for the devices that run together. Use Ethernet for fixed equipment where possible. Before buying switches, add the traffic on each shared link, check power needs, and test Wi-Fi at the seats and screens. Allow spare capacity for other activity; internet speed alone does not tell you whether the room will work.

Internet access for a cloud meeting and video on a LAN (local area network) are different jobs. Control traffic carries commands and status between keypads, lighting, and room processors. Check each path before blaming internet speed.

This page covers cabling, switching, and Wi-Fi for 4K and 8K-capable rooms, control, and video calls at home or at work. For residential cabling costs, use the smart-home network infrastructure cost guide. Bandwidth planning specific to 8K streaming at home is covered in the home network guide for 8K streaming.

How much bandwidth does each stream need, and which switch speed follows?Link to this section#

Add simultaneous streams. Distinguish internet-access recommendations from typical use and local video traffic.

Use the figures below for the named products and configurations. They are not general network limits. Mbps means megabits per second; kbps means kilobits per second.

Everyday meeting-room planningLink to this section#

Production video and network audioLink to this section#

NDI (Network Device Interface) carries production video over a local network. Its 1080 60P label means progressive high-definition video at sixty frames per second; 4K60 means 4K at that frame rate. Dante carries network audio.

A PCM (uncompressed digital audio) check using Audinate's Dante Virtual Soundcard format: payload bits per second = sample rate × bit depth × channel count. One 48 kHz / 24-bit mono channel is 48000 × 24 × 1 = 1,152,000 bits per second, or 1.152 Mbps, before Ethernet overhead. Audinate's table lists 32x32 as the maximum recommended channels on 100 Mbps at that format and recommends a Gigabit network.

Unicast (one copy per receiver) NDI multiplies by receivers. NDI's switch page says if one 100 Mbps NDI HX (compressed video) camera is watched by three Studio Monitor instances, the network carries 300 Mbps. Count receivers, not just cameras. The same page still starts from Gigabit Ethernet on every switch port. NDI also says multiple 1080 60P streams can stack on a single Gigabit network.

A typical scenario: two cameras, each a typical NDI 1080 60P stream at up to 150 Mbps. Three Studio Monitor instances watch each camera over unicast. Using NDI's multiplier, that is 2 × 150 × 3 = 900 Mbps if every receiver takes both cameras. A single 1000 Mbps uplink (the link between switches) carrying that load is already near full. Two streams with one receiver each total 300 Mbps before other traffic and overhead. Use that arithmetic as a starting point, then check the complete traffic budget.

Consider Gigabit (1000 Mbps) access ports when the complete traffic budget and vendor requirements fit with operating headroom. Include other traffic, protocol overhead, and variable bitrate peaks, then test simultaneous use. NDI says High Bandwidth NDI at 4K60 can use 250 Mbps per stream; that is an example, not a ceiling. Before selecting uplinks, obtain the chosen encoder's bandwidth specification and measure the planned simultaneous load. Consider faster uplinks or a separate AV switch when the shared path cannot carry that load with room to spare.

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How should cabling, switching, and Wi-Fi split internet streaming, local AV, and control?Link to this section#

For internet playback, check the internet service provider's connection as well as the path inside the house. For local AV, check the links between senders and receivers. Use this comparison before buying equipment.

For home Wi-Fi, test with the doors closed and the TV in its final position while other household devices are active. Compare a wired playback test with Wi-Fi before replacing equipment. Check the streamer's connection specifications as well as the router's; a faster router alone is not a purchase plan. Use the home network guide for 8K streaming for detailed streaming calculations.

Microsoft strongly recommends a wired connection for Teams Rooms devices. Wireless is an option when copper is not available. That page's wireless checks: prefer 5 GHz, use band steering when 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz share a name, keep wireless channel utilization below 50%, and confirm the room device and an access point see each other at -60 dBm or better. The org-wide Teams page adds that Wi-Fi is not necessarily designed for real-time media, that 5 GHz needs more access points, and that neighboring access points should use non-overlapping channels.

NDI's switch note is similar for production video. Wi-Fi can affect video performance. If an NDI device must be wireless, that page points you at Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 7 hardware and ordinary radio-interference practice. It does not treat Wi-Fi as the default for a camera.

At home, prefer Ethernet for fixed players and access points when cabling is practical. Leave mobile devices on Wi-Fi.

When does multicast flood other ports, and what should you turn on?Link to this section#

Multicast sends a stream to a group of speakers or displays. On a switch that does not snoop, that copy becomes a flood. RFC 4541 contrasts snooping switches with normal switch behavior, where multicast traffic is typically forwarded on all interfaces. Printers, access points, and PCs then receive packets they never asked for. That flooding can consume capacity on those ports. The RFC does not say the video always drops.

IGMP snooping (the switch watching join messages so multicast only goes where a device subscribed) is the usual control for that flood. The same RFC says an IGMP snooping switch conserves bandwidth on segments where no node asked for the packet. For NDI, enable that control when you actually use multicast: NDI's hardware note says to enable IGMP snooping if you use multicast, and to set an IGMP querier on each switch in a multi-switch network.

If the traffic is unicast, snooping does not change the path. A single Teams Room sending a cloud meeting is unicast to Microsoft. Turning on IGMP for that room alone does nothing useful. Confirm whether Dante, NDI, or the camera vendor is sending multicast on your switch before you treat snooping as mandatory.

NDI and Dante on one flat LAN can interfere. NDI lists Dante as a protocol that interferes with NDI and says both should run on their own VLAN (an isolated network segment). Follow that split when both protocols are present.

When do VLANs and QoS help, and when do they conflict?Link to this section#

A VLAN is an isolated network segment. Creating one does not reserve bandwidth or apply quality of service (QoS) by itself. It lets you put conferencing, production video, guest Wi-Fi, and registers on different port groups so you can apply different forwarding settings to each group.

QoS marks packets so a congested switch can keep voice ahead of a file copy. Microsoft lists DSCP values (Differentiated Services Code Point, the class mark in an IP header; RFC 2474 states that the DSCP field is six bits wide) for Teams Rooms on Windows:

• Audio: DSCP 46, Expedited Forwarding (EF), client source ports 50,000-50,019
• Video: DSCP 34, Assured Forwarding AF41, client source ports 50,020-50,039
• Windows application/screen sharing: DSCP 18, Assured Forwarding AF21, client source ports 50,040-50,059

On Teams Rooms on Android, application/screen sharing uses DSCP 34 (AF41), matching video instead. Configure Windows markings through an endpoint policy; for Android, enable the Teams tenant policy that inserts QoS markings.

NDI's switch note goes the other way. NDI tells you to disable QoS to avoid delays, and to disable jumbo frames. Plan appropriate treatment of Teams markings along the managed path, including shared uplinks and routers, rather than stopping at the room's VLAN. Check NDI settings separately. Confirm in the switch guide whether those policies can coexist; use separate equipment when they cannot. Choose guest, staff, AV, or payment-device segments according to the devices present and their security requirements.

Choose VLAN-on-the-office-switch if you have a few conference rooms and no multicast production video. Choose a dedicated AV switch when NDI High Bandwidth, Dante multicast, or both are on the same LAN and the office switch cannot apply separate multicast and QoS settings.

Do you need a PTP grandmaster, or is a Dante clock leader enough?Link to this section#

Precision Time Protocol (PTP) shares timing across the LAN; a grandmaster is its reference clock. Some systems use it so audio and pictures that travel as separate packets still line up at the display. Needing the protocol is not the same as buying a dedicated timing chassis.

All Dante-enabled devices use IEEE 1588 PTP and elect one Dante device as the PTP Leader Clock. The others follow. In standard Dante networks, Preferred Leader can override the election. Preferred Leader is not supported in ST 2110-30 mode or AES67 Manual mode. Default Dante clocking is PTPv1. PTPv2 appears when RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol, used for AES67 / ST 2110-30 interoperability) is enabled.

SMPTE ST 2110-10 defines professional media over managed IP as RTP streams tied to a common reference clock. ST 2110-20 then carries uncompressed active video over IP. The same SMPTE page describes audio-video-data synchronization using PTP clocks.

A Teams Room sending compressed video to the cloud does not take that production clock. Dante still runs PTP, but it elects a leader from the Dante devices you already bought. Specify the clock architecture and a compatible timing source before selecting equipment. Buy a separate grandmaster only when the vendor or system design requires it; the need for synchronized streams alone does not establish that purchase. Ask the designer to identify the required clock mode and source in the proposal.

How do you budget PoE so cameras stay up?Link to this section#

Power over Ethernet (PoE) puts direct-current power on the same copper as data. The switch is the power sourcing equipment (PSE). The camera, speaker, or encoder is the powered device (PD). Cable loss means the PD always gets less than the PSE puts out. When you compare against the switch's published PoE output budget, sum the PSE class allocations, not the PD column. Check per-port class support separately: a pool that is large enough still fails if the port cannot deliver that class.

The Ethernet Alliance's overview of IEEE 802.3bt maps the classes. The numbers below are class and type maximums for those IEEE allocations, not a promise that every camera draws the full amount.

Rule of thumb: PoE pool at the switch ≥ sum of each device's PSE class watts for devices that can draw at once. Then confirm each used port supports that class.

A typical scenario: eight indoor cameras at Class 3. Class 3 PSE is 15.4 W. Plan 8 × 15.4 = 123.2 W at the switch, plus access points and spare ports that share the pool. The matching PD figure is 13 W, so 8 × 13 = 104 W at the cameras. A switch pool sized to 104 W is short by the cable-loss allocation the PSE column already includes. Do not add the PSE column and the PD column together.

A typical scenario: sixteen cameras at Type 2 and four access points at Type 2. Twenty × 30 W is 600 W of PSE allocation. The PD column is 25.5 W, so 20 × 25.5 = 510 W at the devices. A 510 W pool cannot cover that layout. Split cameras onto a second PSE, or buy a larger pool. A lower class is usable only if the chosen device documents an acceptable reduced-power mode. It is not a generic switch setting.

Cable gets hot when it carries current. The Ethernet Alliance notes that 802.3bt has to accommodate increased cable resistance as the cable heats. That matters in a North Texas ceiling. Check actual ambient temperatures, the cable manufacturer's bundle requirements, and cable temperature ratings before choosing and routing the cable.

Cat6 or Cat6A for the new pulls?Link to this section#

Keep two questions apart: whether today's Gigabit endpoints run on the cable you already have, and whether a later 10GBASE-T (10-gigabit Ethernet over twisted pair) link will fit.

NDI's cabling note for Gigabit is a minimum of CAT5e, with network cable running up to about 100 m before the signal starts to degrade. Existing Cat6 that is certified as a 1000BASE-T channel is in that band. Distance alone is not the test. Ask for a certified copper report (wire map, length, and the application you specified).

The 55 m figure is a 10-Gigabit reach, not a Gigabit replacement line. An Ethernet Alliance paper on 10GBASE-T lists CAT6 at 55 m and CAT6a at 100 m. The same paper says 10GBASE-T works for lengths up to 100 meters on Cat6A-and-up cabling.

Choose Cat6A if you are opening walls, if any run may later carry 10GBASE-T, or if you specified 10GBASE-T and need the 100 m channel. Keep existing Cat6 if the endpoints are 1 Gigabit Teams devices and compressed cameras and the channel tests as 1000BASE-T. Replacing every drop in a finished office to chase 10-gig for a Teams Room that typically uses 3-4 Mbps is not worth it.

If the span between buildings exceeds 100 m of twisted pair, use fiber. 10GBASE-T is specified to that copper length.

What should you check before anyone orders switches?Link to this section#

1. List every endpoint that will be on at the same time: room PCs, cameras, DSPs (digital signal processors that handle room audio), control processors, access points. Write the vendor bitrate or PoE class next to each name.
2. Mark each stream unicast or multicast. If a vendor is sending multicast, enable IGMP snooping and a querier (which checks group membership) on each switch in that path, as that vendor specifies.
3. Add PSE class watts for every device that can draw at once. Compare that sum to the switch's PoE output budget. Check that each port can deliver the class the device needs.
4. Choose network segments for the devices present and their security requirements. Follow NDI's separation guidance when NDI and Dante coexist. Check Teams priority treatment along the managed path, and confirm separately that the switches can apply NDI's settings.
5. Ask, in writing, whether any device requires a dedicated PTP grandmaster, or whether Dante's elected leader is enough. Do not buy timing hardware the install guide does not name.
6. Ask for certified copper tests for the application you specified (1000BASE-T or 10GBASE-T) and a port map with patch-panel labels that match the wall plates.
7. Watch one full meeting or one live playback on the new network before you sign the handover. Frozen video and late audio show up under load, not on a ping.

An in-house IT team can connect a single conferencing appliance when spare port capacity and the provider's requirements fit. Add segmentation where security or traffic settings call for it, and configure priority treatment along the managed path. Multicast audio, High Bandwidth NDI, and a large PoE camera field need IGMP, clocking, and power checked under load. If you do not already run that work, hire someone who does.

Digitalholics LLC was founded in 2015. We are a Control4 Certified Dealer and a CEDIA Member, working from our Plano office. The first is a dealer credential for Control4 systems; the second is an industry-association membership. Neither is a network certification. Ask for the network design and test results when judging that work.

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SourcesLink to this section#

• NDI: Bandwidth
• NDI: Recommended network switch settings
• Audinate: Dante Virtual Soundcard audio channels
• Audinate: Dante Controller clock synchronization
• Microsoft: Prepare your environment for Teams Rooms
• Microsoft: QoS on Teams Rooms devices
• Microsoft: Prepare your organization's network for Teams
• Ethernet Alliance: Overview of 802.3bt Power over Ethernet
• Ethernet Alliance: 10GBASE-T for Broad 10 Gigabit Adoption
• IETF RFC 2474
• IETF RFC 4541
• IETF RFC 4594
• SMPTE ST 2110
• NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00003927
• NCEI station detail: DAL FTW WSCMO AIRPORT (USW00003927)