What to Do If You Experience Jitter or Latency

VoIP is increasingly the phone system of choice for businesses. But like any technology it is not without problems, and you may experience poor call quality. 

Issues with call quality are among the biggest worries for VoIP users. The two most common causes of this are jitter and latency. Jitter occurs when packets don’t arrive in the correct sequence, so the content of the call gets jumbled up. Latency is a delay in the time taken for tasks to complete, which can lead to parts of the call dropping out.

Causes of Problems

While the two problems are different, jitter and latency both tend to be symptoms of the same problems. These include bandwidth issues caused by slow internet connection or congestion, damaged or poorly configured modems or switches, poor-quality Wi-Fi and the physical distance between callers.

If you want to take advantage of wholesale VoIP termination rates from suppliers such as https://www.idtexpress.com/blog/2018/04/07/wholesale-voip-termination-rates-why-voip-is-booming/, then obviously these are problems that need to be addressed, and fortunately there are some simple solutions.

Solutions

The first thing to look at if you are having VoIP issues is the quality of your internet connection. A fast connection is essential for reliable VoIP. If your internet service is good but you are still having problems, then you may need to look at how the bandwidth is being managed – maybe data traffic is conflicting with voice. If you rely heavily on VoIP, it may be worth looking at getting a separate dedicated internet connection.

The next step is to look at your hardware. Older routers and switches may not be up to the demands of VoIP traffic. You need to make sure that the firmware is up to date and the equipment is correctly configured. If this still doesn’t solve the issue, then a switch to more modern kit that is specifically designed to work for VoIP may help. If you are using a wireless network, improving the quality of the signal by adding extra access points may be required.

Finally, if you have a particular problem with jitter, then you might want to look at installing a jitter buffer. This stores packets and ensures that they are in the correct order before passing them to the caller, thus ensuring call quality is maintained.