VoIP Quality of Service (QoS): What to Consider

Your VoIP quality of service (QoS) is the major consideration in selecting your network and VoIP service provider, and how you enjoy and make the most of your digital telecommunications service. It can even be a determinant of whether or not you transition to VoIP at all.

Assess your VoIP network's performance quality regularly when you want to enjoy the full benefits of VoIP. Use a VoIP monitoring service to test these main determinants of acceptable QoS:

Delay/Latency
This pertains to one-way or two-way delay in packet delivery. It is natural up to a certain level – even traditional wireline telephony experiences delay. In digital telephony, delay/ latency may be rooted in the packetization, propagation or transport of data packets. The acceptable latency rate is 150ms, one-way. Anything beyond that is considered below standard QoS and action need to be taken. You can either try to implement fixes or switch to another service provider.
Jitter
With delays, there's jitter. Jitter refers to the variation in packet delay. To make up for these variations, end points have jitter buffers that hold the delivery of packets up until these can be delivered at a consistent pace. The bigger the delays and the more varied the jitter, the bigger the jitter buffer. A big jitter buffer increases the delay further. Also, if there is too much jitter, it can overflow the buffer, which would then cause packet loss.
Packet loss
As the name suggests, packet loss refers to the number of packets dropped during transmission. Any loss of packets is a dip in VoIP quality. The maximum tolerable packet loss is at 3%. For good quality VoIP service, the ideal is a less than 1.5% packet loss.

A VoIP monitoring service, such a VoIP Spear, is the best tool for guaranteeing top VoIP quality of service. It is your first step in making the most of VoIP. Sign up today: http://voipspear.com/signup