Remote work infrastructure has two critical points of failure: video calling (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams) and team messaging (Slack, Teams, Discord). When either goes down during work hours, entire companies lose their ability to collaborate. Here is how to handle it.
Is Zoom down or is it your connection?
Zoom issues are frequently local. Poor video quality, dropped calls, and audio problems are almost always caused by insufficient bandwidth or an unstable connection — not a Zoom outage.
Zoom recommends 3.8 Mbps upload and download for 1080p video. Run a speed test to check your connection. If your speed is adequate but video is still choppy, the issue may be network latency (high ping) rather than throughput.
For a genuine Zoom server check, use WebsiteDown on zoom.us. Zoom also maintains a status page at status.zoom.us showing current service status per region.
Is Slack down or is it cached messages?
Slack has two modes of failure. In the first, the app loads but messages are not syncing — this is usually a connectivity issue where the Slack client cannot reach Slack's servers. Messages you send may appear to post but are actually queued locally.
In the second, the Slack app itself fails to load. This is more clearly an outage. Check status.slack.com for Slack's live service status.
Slack also has a tendency to get stuck on the last cached state of a channel, showing you old messages without loading new ones. Force-quitting and restarting the Slack app resolves this in most cases.
Backup communication plans
Every remote team should have a backup communication channel for when primary tools fail. Good options include: a group text message thread (works even with no internet if team members are on mobile data), WhatsApp or Telegram group (if outside a corporate network), and a secondary video call option.
For video calls, if Zoom fails, Google Meet (meet.google.com) requires no download and works in any browser. Microsoft Teams can be accessed via browser if the desktop app is down. Jitsi (meet.jit.si) is a free, open-source option that requires no account.
Communicating during an outage
When team messaging is down, the irony is that you need to communicate about the outage through other channels. Establish in advance where your team will go — a designated backup channel — so that when Slack goes down, everyone knows where to check.
WebsiteDown monitors slack.com and zoom.us continuously. Setting up Pro monitoring alerts for these services means your team gets an automatic notification the moment they recover, without anyone having to manually check.