When you think of your VoIP service call quality and customer satisfaction, latency may not come to mind. However, the audio experience is a huge part of the overall call quality of your VoIP phone system.
When customers complain about dropped calls, choppiness, or static, they are actually referring to VoIP latency (audio latency).
Understanding Latency in VoIP systems
First, let’s discuss VoIP. VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, allows people to make calls over the Internet. The technology converts your voice into a digital signal, so you can call from any device.
When someone speaks into their phone, the sound is converted into packets of data. Data packets are then compressed into digital files made of raw audio, which is also your speaking voice. The data packets are sent through routers, servers, networks, and finally to the recipient’s device.
This real-time journey may seem long in explanation, but it happens in mere milliseconds. In telecommunications, latency can refer to the time it takes a voice packet to reach the destination. Any lag greater than 30 ms can adversely affect the call quality experience.
What is Network Latency?
Latency is another word for delay, and can often refer to the response time-or lack of time-for a network user to start an action and the time it takes to complete the action. In a VoIP system, audio latency is the delay in sound.
Network latency refers to the time it takes for a data packet to travel from its source to its destination, typically measured in milliseconds (ms). It represents the delay between sending and receiving data across a network.
Low latency ensures faster, more responsive communication—essential for real-time applications like video conferencing, online gaming, and VoIP. In contrast, high latency can lead to noticeable delays and degraded user experience.
Audio Latency in VoIP: How does latency affect Voice over Internet Protocol?
Data packets can travel a complex path. So, it’s no wonder that latency, which can be very frustrating, is commonplace in VoIP.
Audio latency, along with network jitter, can be a large contributing factor to poor VoIP calls. Real-time calls can be greatly affected by even the slightest delay. High latency means difficulty conducting a conversation, which can ultimately affect a caller’s experience negatively. With constant lags, conversations can slow down and leave room for the dreaded “talk over,” where a representative appears to interrupt the customer or the other person.
Problems with latency can confuse conversations. Excessive audio latency has the potential to degrade call quality in telecommunications applications. That degradation in quality can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful call, a high or low customer score.
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How do VoIP Jitter and Latency Affect Your VoIP Call Quality?
Where latency is the time the voice data takes to reach its destination, jitter is when that time varies. If you know there’s a 5-second delay between you speaking and the listener hearing, you can compensate for it. There’s a rhythm that you can fall into. However, a variation in the delay times can be frustrating.
Jitter and latency are signs of poor call quality, and they reflect your quality of service. If customers experience a random mix of delays and overlaps when they are conversing with you, they will come off the call with a poor impression of your business. Call quality issues aren’t just technical problems to be solved; they also form a part of your customer experience (CX) journey. You need near-perfect business VoIP quality to ensure your customers get the best service.
Here’s how variations in packets of data delivery can affect your business, in addition to negatively impacting CX:
Operational Impact
VoIP latency makes your agents significantly less efficient. They constantly mishear customer issues and must repeat themselves to be understood. As a result, their average handling time (AHT) increases and first call resolution (FCR) decreases due to network congestion. Disgruntled customers escalate calls, which means more pressure on support and back-office staff. Finally, if you train new staff on VoIP connections with high latency, they don’t understand the flow of efficient conversations, which might affect their performance in the future.
Quality of Service (QoS) Monitoring Gaps
It’s difficult to measure performance when you don’t know if the issues are caused by the agent’s actions or increased latency and jitter. Metrics like call duration and wait times are all affected by latency, which means you can’t be sure if you need to fix technical problems or invest in training.
Business Risks
We’ve already discussed how latency can affect CX and their perception of your business. Negative brand perception can be especially detrimental in industries where real-time communication is important. It can lead to a loss of business, as potential customers might be put off by the poor experience or hang up in frustration before the sale can be made.
Reduce VoIP Latency and Improve your calls.
The familiar rainbow circle on your MacBook, the delay on YouTube, or the time it takes to load your favorite social media video are all recognizable illustrations of latency.
While audio latency is usually defined as the time it takes for audio data to travel from a source—a mobile device, computer, smartphone, etc—to your headphones or speakers, it can also include several factors like input latency, output latency, and touchscreen lag.
Latency can go a couple of ways—One-way latency is the time it takes for a data packet to travel in one direction. Two-way latency measures the round-trip time. Both measurements can affect the customer journey with VoIP.
How is VoIP Latency measured?
Round-trip time (RTT) is the most commonly used term: it’s a measure of how long it takes for a data packet to go to the destination and back. Some tools also report one-way latency, which is half of RTT, assuming symmetrical paths.
The travel time of data packets is measured in milliseconds (ms), so latency is the travel time from point A to point B measured in ms.
Note that a millisecond is a thousandth of a second and can also have a 0.0001-second value. These data packets can move fast; however, any material delays begin to noticeably impact the audio quality of your voice calls.
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Troubleshoot Latency Issues
If these issues sound familiar, they could be the cause of latency for VoIP calls:
- Out-of-order conversations (hearing the ending of a sentence before the beginning, hearing only the middle part of someone’s sentence, etc.)
- Audio on a video call is out of sync with the video stream (lip sync)
- Completely derailed conference calls with 3 or more participants
- Delayed or dropped calls
- Slow download speeds and upload speeds
- Internet connectivity issues
- Loss of real-time communication
- Static audio
How to Reduce Latency in VoIP Calls
Increase Call Bandwidth
Along with server location issues, a lack of sufficient bandwidth is one of the leading causes of latency issues. If the bandwidth is not suitable for the VoIP traffic you receive, you’ll experience higher latency.
Upgrade or Replace Slow Networking Equipment and Devices
Keeping your devices up to date and checking for defects, faults, and upgrades can decrease the probability of data packet loss. This keeps latency and jitter to a minimum.
Change Your Routing
It’s important to keep data packet journeys to a minimum. If you have a noticeable delay in your calls or device, consider changing your routing or performing a latency test.
Invest in Sufficient Bandwidth and Choose the Right VoIP Provider
Ensure your internet service provider can give you the bandwidth and speed you need to maintain a high-quality VoIP phone service.
Measure Latency in a VoIP Environment
Using network latency testing, also called a ping test or VoIP speed test, will help you to understand how much of a lag you’re dealing with in your phone system, and can even assist you in identifying other issues affecting your call quality.
Testing your latency allows you to identify delays and issues. Once you start testing your latency, you can become more proactive about your latency protocols.
So Long to Latency
Top industry professionals will agree that reducing or eliminating call latency is one of the biggest IT factors after cybersecurity.
We get it! No one wants a delay in sound. Those pesky delays can be the determining factor between a seamless audio experience and a decision to completely shut everything down.
Implement these tips and decrease latency in milliseconds (well, maybe not that fast, but still quick!)
To learn more about audio latency, contact us.
