Tech Reviews

Factors That Affect VoIP Quality

Most enterprise communications now rely on technology. In the past, businesses relied heavily on email, and many still do, but that is changing. Voice over Internet Protocol, VoIP, is an incredible service that allows businesses to make calls and send text messages over the internet. All a business needs is a service provider, a reliable internet connection, and the right VoIP systems. Even with everything available, you might be disappointed to find that the experience you have is not that great. This can be due to several factors and reasons that we will explore below.

Bandwidth Issues

Your internet bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed on an internet connection. If you were filling a pool, your bandwidth would be the size of the pipe and the water would be your internet packets. A larger bandwidth (bigger pipe) means you can send and receive a lot more data over a connection.

In an office where there are a lot of systems sharing a single internet connection, that bandwidth is shared, meaning everyone gets a fraction of it. This can cause issues with your VoIP system. The best solution is to prioritize audio and voice packets over your internet connection to eliminate this issue.

Ping

You might also see ping referred to as latency. Ping is the amount of time it takes for a request to reach a server and be transferred back to the originating machine. Ping is measured in milliseconds, and a lower ping is always best.

Because VoIP relies on an internet connection, the ping matters a lot to the quality of your calls. Providers say that your internet should have a ping of about 60 to 70 milliseconds for it to be usable for VoIP.

Higher ping can result in delays, which means you will experience echoes and delays in your communication. This can be incredibly frustrating when talking to customers and clients alike, as it can lead to loss of business.

Businesses need to understand what is ping, how to measure it, and which internet service providers have the lowest ping for the best service.

Internet Speeds

Following from our pool analogy above, the amount of water coming out of the pipe per unit of time is your internet speed. More speed means you can send and receive voice and audio packets faster. When you have higher speeds, you can divide it up as you like when you have multiple VoIP systems without seeing a noticeable change in call quality.

Audio Codecs

Voice packets that are being sent through a VoIP system need to be compressed sometimes. This is to lower the amount of data being sent to ensure smooth communication. The audio codec you use will determine the level of compression that happens.

If you use codecs with a high compression factor, you will send very little data, but the quality of the packets on the other end will deteriorate accordingly. Additionally, the compression can introduce delay as the audio is compressed and then unpacked at the other end.

Choosing the right audio codec can limit these issues.

Understanding what causes VoIP quality issues can help diagnose them when they come up. The issues discussed above are a great place to start because they affect your VoIP quality the most.

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