fundamentals
Jitter is the variation in delay between voice data packets arriving over the internet. High jitter makes calls sound choppy or robotic even when overall internet speed looks fine.
Voice packets should arrive at a steady, even pace, like water flowing at a constant rate. Jitter happens when that pace becomes uneven, with some packets arriving early and others late. The receiving device then has to work harder to reconstruct smooth audio.
A small amount of jitter gets smoothed out automatically by a buffer in the phone app. Beyond a certain point, usually above about 30 milliseconds of variation, callers start to notice a problem. Choppiness, robotic-sounding voices or brief gaps in speech all show up.
Jitter is often caused by network congestion, a wifi router juggling too many devices, or a connection shared with heavy downloads. It is a separate problem from raw internet speed, which is why a "fast" connection can still produce a jittery call.
Worked example
A 3-person office notices choppy calls every afternoon when the team streams video in the background.
Moving the office router to prioritise VoIP traffic (a setting called QoS) resolves the jitter, since the shared connection was no longer forcing voice packets to compete with video streams.
Why it matters to a small team
Jitter is one of the most common causes of "our VoIP calls sound bad" complaints in small offices. It is usually fixable with router settings, rather than a more expensive internet plan.
Jitter is usually caused by network congestion: too many devices sharing a connection, a wifi router struggling under load, or heavy downloads competing with voice traffic. It reflects inconsistent packet timing rather than low overall bandwidth.
Prioritise voice traffic on the router using Quality of Service (QoS) settings, reduce the number of devices competing for bandwidth during calls, and consider a wired connection instead of wifi for the busiest desk.
Under about 30 milliseconds is generally unnoticeable to callers. Above that, voices can start to sound choppy or robotic. Most business VoIP apps display jitter as part of an in-call quality indicator.
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