Network best practices for Teams town halls and live events with third‑party providers

[What and Why:]

To help prevent streaming quality issues in Teams town halls and Teams live events, we recommend that you review your network configuration—especially if users connect through a secure web gateway (SWG), proxy, or traffic inspection solution (for example, Netskope, Zscaler, or Symantec).

[Rollout Schedule:]

This is an active issue. We are continuing to investigate and provide guidance to help reduce the risk of streaming quality issues. Updates will be shared as they become available.

[Impact on Your Organization:]

Who is affected:

• Microsoft 365 tenants that run Teams town halls and/or Teams live events, especially where users connect through a third-party SWG, proxy, or traffic inspection provider.

Platforms/Services:

• Microsoft Teams (town hall and Teams live events) across desktop, web, and mobile, depending on how attendees join and how your network routes traffic.

What will happen:

• If your SWG, proxy, or traffic inspection policies aren’t optimized for real-time media, town halls and live events may experience:
  • Intermittent join or playback issues
  • Lower video quality or buffering
  • Increased latency or broadcast delay
• If your network is already configured to allow Teams real-time media traffic as recommended, no change is expected.

[Action Required/Recommendations:]

To help reduce the risk of streaming quality issues, review the following recommendations:

• Validate Microsoft 365 endpoint allowlists and routing.
• If you are using a VPN split-tunnel, ensure it is configured according to Implementing VPN split-tunnel.
• Review your SWG, proxy, and inspection policies for Teams media traffic. Refer to Understanding implications when using network intermediation to decrypt or manipulate Microsoft 365 traffic at the network layer. Network intermediation is not recommended or supported for this scenario.
• Run a test town hall or live events through the same path users will take in production.
• Prepare your helpdesk and event organizers with troubleshooting guidance and diagnostic collection steps.

[Compliance considerations:]

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.