Facetime audio drops in and out

We Facetime frequently with extended family, and lately we've been having problems with the audio dropping out when we chat with my mother. Her audio can be heard on my end only when there is no noise from us at all. In other words, if we are totally silent (to include any background noise like the TV) we can hear her just fine. As soon as any audio from our end is picked up, her audio drops out. I've noticed that if I mute our end we can hear her as well, it's like any audio sent from our end blocks out any incoming audio. She is the only one this happens with, and it happens with both my MacBook and iPad, so I would suspect the problem is on her end. . She is using an iPhone 4s, I've had her restart the app, make sure her software is up to date, and reset her phone.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any ideas!

What your experiencing is called "half duplex." It can be caused by not enough bandwidth, or the use of a Bluetooth or wired headset that aggressively masks background noise. Is she simply speaking using the built in microphone on the iPhone, or is she using a headset with a mic built in?

Thanks for the reply.. No, she isn't using a bluetooth headset when we chat, though I do know she has one paired to her phone which she uses while driving.I'll have her turn bluetooth off next time and see if that makes a difference.

Just to follow up on this, I had my mother reset her phone again and turn bluetooth off to make sure that her wireless headset wasn't interfering, but she is still having the same problem. I've also had her use it from a different wifi network, but the problem still persists. She went to her local ATT store and they were zero help, she's nowhere near an Apple store. Any other ideas?

Is she on a "lite" version of high-speed internet? Though I suppose having taken it to some other Wi-Fi network would sort of disprove my theory, I was thinking perhaps its a bandwidth issue. Its very odd to hear someone saying that audio drops in and out while the video is working okay.

Follow up, got the problem solved. I feel dumb for not considering it, but it turns out that she got a brand new phone case right around the same time she started having these problems. It suddenly occurred to her, she removed the case and voila, no more microphone problems.

DOH!!

Thanks for letting us know.