Latency vs. Jitter: What’s the Difference?

Latency is how long data takes to travel from one point to another, measured in milliseconds. Jitter is how much that delay changes from one packet to the next. High latency makes everything feel slow, while high jitter breaks real-time apps like VoIP and video calls. Aim for latency under 100 ms and jitter under 20 ms.

Latency and jitter are often mentioned together, and they're easy to mix up. Both are measured in milliseconds, both get worse when the network is congested, and both can ruin a video call. But they describe different problems, and they have different fixes. Treating jitter like a latency problem, or the other way around, wastes time.

This guide explains what each metric means, how they affect each other, how to measure them and what counts as good or bad, and how to reduce each one.

Latency and jitter decide how responsive and how stable your network feels. High latency makes web pages slow to load, cloud apps sluggish and video calls full of awkward pauses. High jitter makes audio choppy and video freeze, even on a fast connection.

For businesses, both turn into lost productivity, frustrated customers and help desk tickets that are hard to reproduce, because the problem is often gone by the time someone looks.

High latency and jitter are usually symptoms of a deeper problem, like congestion, an overloaded device or a failing link, so they rarely show up alone. When they do, the effects add up:

• Degraded Application Performance: High latency slows applications down, while high jitter makes real-time services like VoIP and video conferencing inconsistent.
• Poor User Experience: Users notice lag, choppy audio and buffering, and the help desk gets tickets that are hard to reproduce.
• More Retransmissions: When a delay spike is long enough for TCP to assume packets were lost, it resends them, adding traffic to a network that's already struggling.

Latency is a measure of the time it takes for data to travel from one point to another in a network. It's often referred to as "lag" or "delay," and it's typically measured in milliseconds (ms). In simple terms, latency is the time delay between a user action and the response from the network. For example, when you click on a link in a web browser, latency is the time it takes for the web page to start loading after you've clicked.

Latency is a critical metric in network performance, as it directly affects how responsive a network feels to users. It consists of several components, including the time it takes for data to be sent (transmission delay), the time it takes to process the data at routers and switches (processing delay), and the time the data spends travelling through the network's physical medium (propagation delay).

The lower the latency, the more responsive the network will be. High latency, on the other hand, can make applications feel slow and unresponsive, leading to frustration for users.

Several factors contribute to latency in a network:

1. Network Congestion:

• Occurs when the volume of data traffic exceeds the network's capacity, leading to delays as data packets queue up for transmission.
• Examples include high traffic during peak usage times, large file downloads, cloud-based applications, video conferencing, and DDoS attacks.

2. Distance:

• The farther data needs to travel, the more latency increases due to the time it takes for signals to propagate through physical mediums.
• Impacts businesses with remote offices, cloud-based applications hosted in distant locations, and remote workers.

3. Hardware Issues:

• Outdated or underpowered hardware, such as old routers, low-bandwidth connections, insufficient RAM, and overloaded servers, can bottleneck data processing, causing latency.

4. Software Issues:

• Bugs, inefficiencies, or outdated software can slow down data processing and transmission, leading to higher latency.
• Examples include poorly optimized operating systems, application bugs, inefficient network protocols, and security software.

5. Packet Loss:

• Occurs when data packets fail to reach their destination, leading to retransmissions and delays, ultimately increasing latency.
• Can be caused by network congestion, environmental factors, and interference.

6. Quality of Service (QoS) Settings:

• Misconfigured QoS policies can introduce latency by overly restricting or misidentifying traffic, leading to delays for lower-priority applications.

7. ISP Limitations:

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may impose bandwidth limits, throttle speeds during high usage periods, or have outdated infrastructure, all of which can contribute to higher latency.

Want to dive deeper? Read the full article “What Causes High Latency in Networks: The Silent Speed Bumps on Your Digital Highway” to understand these causes in detail and learn how to optimize your network for minimal latency and maximum performance!

What Causes High Latency in Networks: The Silent Speed Bumps on Your Digital Highway

Uncover what causes high latency in your network and how you can troubleshoot. Learn to identify congestion, QoS issues and more causing network delay.

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Different levels of latency - high or low - can greatly affect how well your network functions.

High latency means longer delays in data transmission, which can lead to slower loading times, lag in real-time applications like video calls or online gaming, and a generally sluggish network experience. Low latency, or good latency, on the other hand, indicates quicker data transfers, resulting in faster response times and smoother performance for applications.

The impact of high latency is especially noticeable in time-sensitive applications and services, where even slight delays can affect user experience and productivity:

• VoIP and Video Conferencing: High latency can cause noticeable delays in communication, leading to awkward pauses and a decrease in the quality of conversations. This is particularly problematic in real-time applications like VoIP (Voice over IP) and video conferencing, where timely responses are crucial.
• Online Gaming: In gaming, low latency is essential for a smooth experience. High latency can result in lag, where players see delays in their actions, making games less enjoyable and potentially unplayable.
• Web Browsing and Cloud Services: High latency can slow down the loading of web pages and cloud-based applications, leading to longer wait times and reduced productivity. Users expect instant access to information, and delays can cause frustration.
• Financial Transactions: In industries like finance, where transactions need to be processed in real-time, even slight latency can lead to significant losses. Speed is critical, and any delay can have serious consequences.

Jitter refers to the variation in the time it takes for data packets to travel across a network. While latency is the delay from the source to the destination, jitter is the inconsistency in that delay. Ideally, data packets should arrive at consistent intervals, but in reality, network conditions can cause them to arrive out of order or at irregular intervals, leading to jitter.

Network jitter is like someone cutting in line ahead of you at the supermarket checkout. Just as unexpected interruptions can disrupt your orderly progression through the queue, network jitter causes unexpected delays or variations in data transmission, disrupting the smooth flow of online activities.

Jitter is considered a network problem. While some levels of jitter are normal and completely expected, the more jitter you have, the worse your network performance becomes. And there are several factors in your network that can contribute to increasing levels of jitter, such as:

• Network Congestion: When a network is overloaded with traffic, it can cause delays in packet delivery, leading to jitter. This often occurs during peak usage times when multiple users or devices are competing for bandwidth.
• Hardware Limitations: Outdated or malfunctioning network equipment, such as routers and network switches, can struggle to handle data efficiently, causing jitter.
• Route Changes: Data packets may take different routes to reach the same destination due to dynamic routing protocols. These route changes can cause variations in packet arrival times, leading to jitter.
• Wireless Interference: In wireless networks, interference from other devices, physical obstacles, or environmental factors can disrupt signal strength and consistency, resulting in jitter.
• Buffering and Queueing: Network devices often buffer or queue packets before sending them to manage traffic efficiently. However, if these buffers are overloaded or mismanaged, it can cause packet delays and jitter.

Want to dive deeper? Read the full article “What Causes Jitter in Networks” to understand these causes in detail and learn how to optimize your network for minimal jitter and maximum performance!

What Causes Jitter: Your Go-To Troubleshooting Resource

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Jitter can have a significant impact on network performance, particularly for real-time applications like VoIP (Voice over IP), video conferencing, and online gaming. When jitter is high, it can cause issues such as:

• Choppy Audio/Video: Inconsistent packet delivery results in distorted or interrupted audio and video streams.
• Calls That Feel Delayed: To smooth out jitter, VoIP and video apps hold packets in a jitter buffer before playing them. That buffer adds delay to the conversation, and the higher the jitter, the bigger the buffer needs to be.
• Packet Loss: Packets that arrive too late for the jitter buffer are discarded. Jitter can turn into packet loss even when the network delivered every packet.

Both latency and jitter play crucial roles in the quality and reliability of network-dependent applications. Understanding the difference between jitter and latency is key to optimizing your network's performance and ensuring smooth business operations.

Latency refers to the delay between sending a request and receiving a response over a network. In business-critical applications like video conferencing, cloud-based software, or real-time data analytics, high latency can cause noticeable delays. This can lead to inefficiencies, such as slow application performance or lag in communication, which can negatively impact productivity and customer experience.

Jitter involves the inconsistency in packet arrival times during data transmission. Even with low latency, high jitter can disrupt real-time services like VoIP calls or live video streams, where data must be delivered in a steady, continuous flow. Inconsistent data delivery can result in distorted audio, frozen video, or disrupted service, potentially leading to miscommunication or degraded user experience.

• What it measures: Latency is how long data takes to travel from source to destination. Jitter is how much that travel time varies from one packet to the next.
• The question it answers: Latency answers "how long is the delay?" Jitter answers "how consistent is the delay?"
• Unit: Both are measured in milliseconds (ms).
• What you notice: High latency causes slow responses, lag and pauses in conversation. High jitter causes choppy or robotic audio, frozen video and stuttering.
• Most affected: Latency hurts cloud apps, remote desktop, gaming and web browsing most. Jitter hurts VoIP, video calls and live streaming most.
• Common causes: Latency comes from distance, congestion, slow or overloaded devices and routing. Jitter comes from congestion, full buffers, Wi-Fi interference and route changes.
• Good: Latency under 100 ms, jitter under 20 ms.
• Problematic: Latency over 200 ms, jitter over 50 ms.
• How to measure: Latency is the round-trip time, measured with ping or continuous monitoring. Jitter is the variation between packet delays, measured over time.
• How to reduce: For latency, use shorter paths, QoS, less congestion and better hardware. For jitter, use QoS, traffic shaping, jitter buffers and a wired connection.

In short: latency is how long the trip takes, and jitter is how much the trip time changes. A connection can have low latency and still sound terrible on a call if jitter is high.

Latency Example:

Consider a business using a cloud-based CRM system. If the network has high latency, employees may experience delays when accessing customer information or updating records. This delay can hinder sales processes, slow customer service response times, and reduce overall efficiency.

Jitter Example:

Imagine a company conducting a virtual meeting with a client via a video conferencing platform. Even if the connection speed is adequate (low latency), VoIP jitter could cause the audio to cut in and out or the video to freeze intermittently. This not only disrupts communication but can also create a poor impression and hinder critical discussions.

Measuring latency and jitter is essential for maintaining optimal network performance, especially in a business environment where consistent connectivity is critical. Network administrators track both to detect bottlenecks, spot routing problems and catch issues before users report them.

Latency, typically measured in milliseconds (ms), represents the time it takes for data to travel from the source to the destination. Lower latency indicates better network efficiency and a superior user experience. Latency is calculated using the following formula:

Total Latency = Propagation Delay + Transmission Delay + Processing Delay + Queueing Delay

• Propagation Delay: Time taken for a signal to travel from source to destination, influenced by distance and transmission medium.
• Transmission Delay: Time required to push bits onto the network, dependent on network speed.
• Processing Delay: Time for networking devices to process and forward data.
• Queueing Delay: Time a packet waits in a queue before transmission, often due to network congestion.

Jitter refers to the variation in delay between packets over a network. It is crucial for applications requiring real-time data transmission, such as video conferencing.

• Compare Consecutive Packets: Measure each packet's delay, then the difference between each packet's delay and the one before it. Jitter is the average of those differences, in milliseconds. This is how most VoIP systems and monitoring tools measure it.
• Use Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD): Subtract the average delay from each packet's delay, take the absolute value, and average the results. This shows how far delays stray from the average, rather than from packet to packet.

To effectively measure and manage latency and jitter, various tools and techniques are commonly used, each offering different levels of insight into network performance:

1. Ping:

A basic tool that measures the round-trip time for packets sent from a host to a destination and back. While Ping is useful for gauging latency, it doesn't measure jitter directly. It provides a snapshot of latency at a single point in time, without any historical data or baselines.

2. Traceroute:

This tool maps the path data takes across a network to its destination, showing each step (or "hop") along the way. Only latency that starts at a hop and carries through to the destination points to a real problem. A spike at a single hop that disappears at the next one is usually the router answering slowly.

Traceroute helps identify where latency issues might be occurring, but like Ping, it only gives you a measurement at a specific moment. It doesn’t track historical data or provide insights into jitter.

3. Network Monitoring Software:

Network monitoring and diagnostics solutions like Obkio monitor latency, jitter and other network metrics continuously, from every location you deploy them in. Unlike Ping and Traceroute, it provides historical data, baselines, and real-time monitoring for both latency and jitter.

See how latency and jitter impact each other, helping you identify and resolve issues more effectively. With visual dashboards, alert systems, and detailed reports, Obkio offers a much more robust solution for managing and optimizing network performance.

Obkio is an end-to-end network monitoring tool that provides a comprehensive view of the entire network infrastructure, including jitter monitoring and latency monitoring as part of its comprehensive features.

Start measuring jitter and latency!

4. VoIP Testing Tools: For businesses that rely heavily on VoIP or video conferencing, specific tools like VoIPmonitor or MOS testing tools can measure both latency and jitter, ensuring that communication remains clear and uninterrupted.

Once you've measured latency and jitter, interpreting the results is key to understanding your network's health. When evaluating network performance, it's important to recognize these two points:

1. Latency is mostly a function of distance and the path your data takes, and some latency is unavoidable. It only becomes a problem when it's high enough to slow down the apps your users rely on.

Latency Levels:

• Low Latency (0-100 ms): Ideal for most business applications, ensuring quick response times and efficient operations.
• Moderate Latency (100-200 ms): This may cause slight delays in real-time applications, but is generally acceptable for non-critical tasks.
• High Latency (200+ ms): Can severely impact performance, particularly in real-time communications, cloud applications, and remote access tools.

2. Jitter represents variability in data transmission times and is a network issue that can disrupt performance. A little jitter is normal and handled by jitter buffers, but the higher it climbs, the more real-time apps suffer.

Jitter Levels:

• Low Jitter (0-20 ms): Indicates stable and consistent data transmission, essential for VoIP, video conferencing, and other real-time services.
• Moderate Jitter (20-50 ms): This may cause occasional disruptions or minor quality issues in real-time applications.
• High Jitter (50+ ms): Likely to result in poor audio/video quality, frequent disruptions, and a generally unreliable connection.

By regularly measuring and analyzing these metrics, businesses can proactively identify potential issues, optimize their network infrastructure, and ensure that their operations remain smooth and efficient.

Latency and jitter are closely related, because jitter is variation in latency. When latency changes from one packet to the next, that change is jitter. And jitter can add latency back: to smooth it out, real-time apps buffer packets, which delays them.

What jitter doesn't come from is high latency on its own. A connection can be slow and steady, or fast and erratic, and each one needs a different fix.

What matters for jitter isn't how high latency is, but how much it changes:

• High but Stable Latency: A connection with a steady 150 ms has high latency and almost no jitter. Calls feel delayed, but the audio stays clear. This is typical of long-distance paths, like a call to another continent.
• Changing Latency: When latency moves up and down, for example from 20 ms to 80 ms and back as a link congests, that change is jitter. It's what makes calls choppy, even when the average latency looks fine.
• Low and Stable Latency: The best case: fast responses and consistent delivery, which is what real-time apps need.

• Inconsistent Packet Arrival: Jitter causes fluctuations in the timing of packet delivery, leading to inconsistent arrival times. This variability can cause delays in processing and aggregating packets at the destination, which can effectively increase the perceived latency. For applications sensitive to timing, such as online gaming or real-time video conferencing, jitter-induced delays can make the network feel slower and less responsive.
• Jitter Buffers: To cope with jitter, network devices often use jitter buffers to manage incoming packets. While buffering can help smooth out variations in packet arrival times, it introduces additional delays as packets are held in queues before being processed. This buffering can increase latency, especially if the jitter is severe and the buffer size is inadequate.

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Minimizing latency is crucial for enhancing network performance and ensuring a smooth user experience. Here are some effective network optimization strategies and best practices for reducing latency:

Network Optimization Strategies:

1. Upgrade Network Infrastructure

• High-Speed Connections: Invest in higher-speed Internet connections, such as fibre-optic or gigabit Ethernet, to reduce the time it takes for data to travel between devices and servers.
• Modern Hardware: Use updated routers, switches, and network devices that support advanced technologies and higher speeds to minimize delays.

2. Optimize Routing and Traffic Management

• Efficient Routing: Configure routers and switches to use the most efficient routes for data traffic. Avoid unnecessary hops and choose routes with lower latency.
• Quality of Service (QoS): Implement QoS policies to prioritize critical traffic, such as VoIP or video conferencing, ensuring that these applications receive the bandwidth they need and reducing latency for high-priority traffic.

3. Balance the Load

• Load Balancing: Distribute traffic evenly across multiple servers using load balancers to prevent bottlenecks and reduce latency.

4. Reduce Congestion and Bottlenecks

• Network Segmentation: Divide the network into segments to limit the scope of congestion and reduce the impact of high traffic on latency.
• Bandwidth Management: Monitor and manage bandwidth usage to prevent overloading network links and causing delays.

1. Performance Monitoring Tools:

Track latency continuously, not just when someone complains. Obkio's Latency Monitoring measures latency on every path between your locations, and Obkio Insights points to the likely cause when it rises. For step-by-step help, see how to troubleshoot latency issues.

Screenshot from Obkio's Network Performance Monitoring Tool

2. Optimize DNS Performance

• Fast DNS Servers: Use fast and reliable DNS servers to reduce the time required for domain name resolution. Consider using public DNS services with low latency.
• DNS Caching: Implement DNS caching to store frequently accessed domain name resolutions locally, reducing the time needed to resolve domain names.

3. Update and Patch Systems

• Regular Updates: Keep network devices, servers, and software up to date with the latest patches and updates to ensure optimal performance and security.
• Performance Tuning: Apply performance tuning practices to optimize system configurations and improve response times.

4. Implement Redundancy and Failover Solutions

• Redundant Paths: Create redundant network paths and failover solutions to maintain network connectivity and reduce latency in case of network failures or disruptions.

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To ensure a stable and smooth network experience, follow these network configuration adjustments and best practices for reducing jitter.

Network Optimization Strategies:

1. Implement Quality of Service (QoS)

• Prioritize Traffic: Configure QoS settings on routers and switches to prioritize latency-sensitive traffic like VoIP and video streaming. By giving these applications higher priority, you reduce the chances of jitter affecting their performance.

• Traffic Shaping: Use traffic shaping techniques to manage and regulate network traffic, ensuring a steady flow of data and minimizing fluctuations in packet delivery times.

2. Optimize Network Equipment

• Update Firmware: Regularly update the firmware on network devices such as routers and switches to benefit from performance improvements and bug fixes that can help reduce jitter.
• Use Reliable Hardware: Invest in high-quality network equipment that is designed to handle traffic efficiently and reduce packet loss, which can contribute to jitter.

3. Improve Network Design

• Reduce Network Hops: Minimize the number of hops data packets make between the source and destination. Fewer hops can lead to lower jitter by reducing the chances of variability in packet arrival times.
• Network Segmentation: Segment the network to reduce congestion and isolate different types of traffic. By separating traffic types, you can better manage and reduce jitter for critical applications.

4. Monitor and Manage Bandwidth

• Monitor Traffic Patterns: Use network monitoring tools to track traffic patterns and identify any congestion or bandwidth issues that might be causing jitter.
• Manage Bandwidth Usage: Implement bandwidth management practices to ensure that no single application or user consumes excessive bandwidth, which can lead to increased jitter.

1. Jitter Monitoring

Measure jitter continuously on the paths that carry calls and video. Obkio's Jitter Monitoring shows when jitter rises, how long it lasts and which paths it affects, so you can trace it to its source.

2. Ensure Network Redundancy

• Redundant Paths: Establish redundant network paths to provide alternative routes for data in case of congestion or issues on the primary path. This redundancy helps maintain a consistent level of performance and reduces the impact of jitter.
• Failover Mechanisms: Implement failover mechanisms to quickly switch to backup connections if primary routes experience issues, ensuring minimal disruption and jitter.

3. Optimize Application Performance

• Application Settings: Adjust application settings to optimize performance for real-time applications. For example, configure voice and video applications to use lower bitrates if jitter is detected.
• Update Applications: Keep applications up to date to benefit from performance enhancements and improvements that can help mitigate jitter.

4. Use Jitter Buffers

• Adaptive Jitter Buffers: Most VoIP phones and video apps hold incoming packets briefly and play them out at a steady pace. Adaptive buffers grow when jitter rises and shrink when it falls, trading a little delay for smooth audio. Check that they're enabled and sized for your network.

5. Move Real-Time Devices to a Wired Connection

• Wired Over Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi interference and contention are among the most common sources of jitter. Connecting desk phones, conference room systems and the workstations people use for calls by cable removes them.

Screenshot from Obkio's Network Performance Monitoring Tool

Latency and jitter measure different things, and they need different fixes. High latency means data takes too long to arrive: shorten the path, relieve congestion or upgrade the hardware that's slowing it down. High jitter means the delay keeps changing: prioritize real-time traffic, move calls off Wi-Fi and make sure jitter buffers can absorb what's left.

The hard part is telling which one you're dealing with, and where it starts. A ping test shows you a single moment. Continuous monitoring shows how latency and jitter behave over hours and days, on every path, so you can see whether a problem is steady or erratic, local or at your ISP.

For step-by-step help, see our guides to troubleshooting network latency and troubleshooting network jitter.

Obkio is a network monitoring and diagnostics solution that measures latency and jitter continuously between Monitoring Agents at your sites, in the cloud and across the Internet. When performance degrades, Obkio Insights names the likely root cause, so your team knows where to start.

• Start for free
• Deploy in just 10 minutes
• Monitor latency and jitter in all key network locations
• See when each spike started, and on which paths
• Get automatic diagnostics with Obkio Insights

Neither is worse in every case; it depends on the app. For real-time apps like VoIP and video calls, jitter usually does more damage: a steady delay is tolerable, but a changing one makes audio choppy and video freeze. For web browsing, cloud apps and remote desktop, latency matters more, because every action waits on it.

Yes. Jitter measures how much latency changes, not how high it is. A connection averaging 20 ms can still jump between 5 ms and 60 ms from one packet to the next. That's low latency with high jitter, and it's why calls can turn choppy on a connection that tests fast.

Aim for jitter under 20 ms for VoIP. Between 20 and 50 ms, most phones and apps can still compensate with a jitter buffer, but call quality may suffer. Above 50 ms, expect choppy audio and dropped words, even if latency and bandwidth look fine.

Yes, indirectly. VoIP and video apps hold packets in a jitter buffer and play them at a steady pace. Packets that arrive too late for the buffer are discarded, so high jitter turns into packet loss for the app, even when the network delivered every packet.