Network Jitter: Definition, Causes, and Fixes

Network jitter is one of the key indicators of network performance. It reflects the severity of delays you may experience during calls, gaming, and web browsing. Today, we will provide a detailed explanation of this term, its causes, and how to fix it to ensure a smooth network experience.

What Is Network Jitter?

When a data packet is transmitted from the sender to the receiver, there’s a lapse between the two points. However, not every time-lapse is the same, which will be affected by many factors like network congestion, route efficiency, and distance.

Jitter in the network is a value used for describing the variation of the time-lapse. For example, when the jitter is high, it means each lapse varies greatly. It is similar to the concept of acceleration in physics, both being used to describe the degree of change of a quantity.

Jitter in Games

Many players are being bothered by this gaming killer, especially those who like to play games requiring fast response and real-time interaction (e.g., CSGO and Valorant).

There are many common situations caused by the jitter in a game. For example, the lagged shooting action, rubber banding, inconsistent voice chatting, and frame drop. These extremely affect your gaming experience.

Keep reading to learn the causes and fixes for the jitter in the network.

Use a VPN to Provide Safe Gaming Experience

Using a VPN for gaming is good. It can unblock the geo-restrictions, protect user data, and change your IP address. However, due to the encryption process, VPNs can create a latency or Ping. If you don’t want the VPN to slow down your gaming, try a robust and fast VPN, e.g., LightningX VPN.

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Common Causes of Network Jitter

Many factors can cause jitters in the network. Here are the common causes.

• Network congestion.
• Bandwidth throttling.
• Data packet loss and transmission.
• Complicated network topology or long physical distance.
• Poor or unstable wireless signal.
• Outdated network equipment.
• Large occupation of bandwidths.
• Lack of traffic prioritization.
• Network protocol overhead.
• DDoS attacks.

How to Test Network Jitter

According to the types of traffic you are using, you can choose the method below to test the jitter value.

Single endpoint testing: When you control a network endpoint, you can calculate the average round-trip time (RTT) and the minimum RTT for a series of voice packets. This method is called the ping jitter test, and it helps you understand the variations in delay during the data transmission process.

Dual endpoints testing: When you can control two endpoints, you can perform instantaneous jitter measurements. This method compares the sending and receiving intervals of individual packets to reveal the differences between them.

Measuring network’s bandwidth: Bandwidth testing measures a network’s maximum transmission speed (bandwidth). While it primarily checks data transfer capacity, it also impacts network latency and jitter. Insufficient bandwidth can cause packet delays or losses due to congestion, affecting performance.

For example, downloading large files may delay or lose packets for real-time apps (like gaming or video calls), causing instability. To get accurate results, it’s recommended to perform multiple tests with reliable tools (like Speedtest) at different times of the day.

What Is a Good Jitter Speed?

Jitter shows the performance of your network environment. The lower it is, the more stable the network is.

When you play games like CS:GO and LOL, a jitter below 10ms is good, which provides a smooth gaming experience. However, 10ms to 30ms is also acceptable.

For VoIP, the jitter requirement is stricter because VoIP requires real-time data transmission. The best jitter is under 10ms while 10ms to 20ms is acceptable. For video calling, the jitter under 20ms is good and is ok under 50ms.

Regular online activities are less sensitive to jitter, and a slightly higher jitter usually does not noticeably affect the experience. However, if the jitter exceeds 100ms, it may cause slow video loading or delayed webpage responses.

How to Fix Network Jitter

There are many situations where you can encounter the jitter. But you can adopt the methods below to avoid it in advance.

Use a High-Quality Router: A good router can prioritize traffic and effectively allocate it to voice chat instead of other online activities.

Avoid peak traffic hours: You can avoid online activities during the evening when internet traffic is high.

Optimize network configuration: To enhance the experience of important activities like VoIP or video conferencing, you can enable features like Quality of Service (QoS).

Reduce unnecessary bandwidth use: Turning off apps that consume your bandwidth can effectively prevent the jitter.

Use an ethernet cable: An ethernet provides a stable and fast connection for your computer, avoiding jitter’s affection.

Use a tool for resource management: When background programs consume too many resources, such as CPU and RAM, the processing of network packets may be delayed, causing jitter. You can use a system resource management tool like GX Control in Opera GX.

Network Jitter vs. Ping vs. Latency

Jitter, Ping, and latency are all used for presenting the network performance. However, they are different from each other.

Jitter: This value measures the fluctuation of your internet speed. When there’s a high latency, the jitter should appear high as well.

Ping: Ping is the tool for measuring the latency. When latency is high, the ping value will also be high.

Latency: Latency refers to the time a packet is sent to the destination and returned. Its variation decides whether the jitter value is high.

In the End

After reading this post, you might now know what a jitter in the network is. You can adopt the methods we mentioned in the post to fix it and enjoy a smooth gaming experience. Hope you can get some help from this post!