VoIP glossary
What is Jitter?
Jitter is the variation in the time it takes voice packets to arrive, which causes choppy or robotic audio when packets turn up unevenly or out of order.
Jitter explained
Voice packets are sent every 20 milliseconds, but networks do not always deliver them on that rhythm. Phones and PBXs use a jitter buffer to hold packets briefly and play them out smoothly. A bigger buffer hides more jitter but adds delay; a buffer that is too small drops late packets, which sounds like packet loss.
Under about 30 ms of jitter is generally unnoticeable. Higher values usually point to a congested local link, Wi-Fi, or a VPN. Prioritising voice traffic with QoS on the office router fixes most cases.
Example
A remote agent on home Wi-Fi shows 70 ms jitter during a video upload. Moving them to a wired connection drops it to 8 ms and the robotic audio disappears.
Put it into practice
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