A method for determining an initial bitrate for a communication includes receiving a communication request to establish a digital communication between a first user device and a second user device associated with a plurality of features including a geographical identifier identifying a geographical location associated with the first user device, a first network type connection associated with the first user device, a second network type connection associated with the second user device, and an average bitrate for a previous digital communication of the first user device. The method includes determining, using an initial bitrate predictor model configured to receive the plurality of features as feature inputs, an initial bitrate for the digital communication between the first user device and the second user device, and establishing the digital communication between the first user device and the second user device at the determined initial bitrate.