Monitoring Packet Delay, Jitter, Packet Loss and Latency

Factors such as packet delay, jitter, packet loss and network latency can noticeably affect the quality of UDP-based services such as VoIP and video streaming. Contrary to TCP-based services such as HTTP, SMTP, etc., a steady stream of data packets is crucial for VoIP connections, where even slight connectivity problems can cause noise or echo.

How to Check Packet Delay, VoIP Jitter, and Packet Loss Using PRTG

The QoS Sensor

PRTG Network Monitor offers two options for measuring these parameters: the built in QoS ("Quality of Service") sensor monitors delay, jitter, packet loss, reordered and duplicate packets. Alarms can be configured based on what you define as acceptable values, enabling you to take appropriate action to ensure good connection quality. VoIP network monitoring using PRTG's QoS sensor does not require any special hardware - you just need to place a remote probe on both ends of the connection and measure packet delay, jitter, packet loss and latency between them.

IP-SLA Monitoring

If you have IP-SLA enabled Cisco devices, you can also track lost and reordered packets, VoIP latency, jitter, delay, MOS (Mean Opinion Score) etc. using PRTG's IP-SLA sensor. IP SLA uses active traffic-monitoring technology to monitor continuous traffic on the network. This is a reliable method for measuring network performance and very popular for monitoring the sound quality of VoIP connections.

How to Improve VoIP Quality

Whether you use IP-SLA or the QoS sensor, PRTG will tell you when jitter, delay or network packet loss are getting too high. You can then react by prioritizing VoIP traffic in your network, checking bandwidth consumption of other applications, etc.

PRTG Monitors More Than Packet Delay, Jitter and Packet Loss

PRTG Network Monitor is much more than just a VoIP monitoring tool. The network bandwidth monitor tracks net bandwidth usage and network traffic and checks the availability of network devices. Thanks to the comprehensive NetFlow support, PRTG is also an ideal Cisco performance monitor.

PRTG is available in two editions. The Freeware Edition supports up to 10 sensors and may be downloaded and used for personal and commercial use completely free of charge. For more advanced needs, licenses for the Commercial Editions start at $400 / €300.