CN — Comptia Network

Jitter is the variation in latency (delay) between received packets over a network connection. In this scenario, ping response times vary widely from 15 ms to 350 ms, showing a jitter of up to 335 ms. VoIP traffic is highly sensitive to jitter because voice codecs expect packets to arrive at consistent intervals. When packets arrive with large timing variations, the jitter buffer at the receiving end cannot compensate adequately, resulting in choppy audio and gaps in the conversation. Acceptable jitter for VoIP is typically below 30 ms. The wide variation observed here - ranging from near-normal latency to extremely high latency - is a textbook indicator of jitter on the WAN link. The technician should investigate potential causes including network congestion, inadequate QoS configuration, and routing instability on the WAN path between the branch and headquarters.