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Our VoIP test has been helping visitors test their Internet connection for VoIP compatibility for over 15 years. We recently updated it to support full end-to-end encryption and to support mobile devices. It also no longer requires any software to be downloaded.
This test will take less than one minute to complete. The results will include measured information for your Internet connection and consist of a latency test, jitter test and upload and download speeds. Use the "Start" button below to start the VoIP test.
Ask questions or add a comment about your results here.
The speed results will sometimes be slower than the speed plan you are purchasing from your Internet provider. The reason for this is because you may be running other applications (eg Netflix) at the same time.
Bandwidth and Speed - This is a popular term and you have likely had your Internet provider try to up sell you to a higher "bandwidth" that will give you faster speeds for uploads and downloads to and from the Internet. This is typical displayed in Mbps (Mega bits per second) or Kbps (Kilo bits per second) with home Internet download speeds typically ranging from 5Mbps all the way up to 1000Mpbs. it really depends on your needs and how much you are willing to pay every month. Also keep in mind that your upload speed will often be significantly less than your download speed. The good news is that for VoIP you only need around 90kbps worth of bandwidth so if you have a regular high speed connection such as DSL or cable, you should be in good shape.
Latency and Delay - If your delay (from the ping test) is less than 100 milliseconds, your voice calls should consistently be of high quality. Even delays up to 400 milliseconds (as per ITU) can result in decent call quality.
Packet Loss - Any packet loss up to 5% will likely not be noticed by you when you are making calls. As these are digital packets it is often possible to have a packet loss of 0%.
Jitter - This is measured in milliseconds and is created by some instability in your connection. It is a fluctuation in the signal such that it becomes out of sync or displaced from where it should be in the transmission. It is effectively a continuous variation in the delay of packet delivery. VoIP jitter can be tolerated up to 20ms to 30 ms.
MOS Score - MOS stands for Mean Opinion Score and is actually a score given by a human user when evaluating the quality of voice. As it is an opinion, it is subjective. A MOS score of 4.0 or higher is desired.
SIP ALG - SIP Application Layer gateway is a feature in most routers and is supposed to help SIP based calls when going through your home or business router. Unfortunately it causes more harm than good. Make sure the VoIP test (depending on the version of the test you are running) indicates N for NO. If it is Y for YES, try and disable it in your router as per our article on disabling SIP ALG. Then re-test.
Even if you VoIP speed test results are good, you may still run into issues at some point with your voice calls. This can be due to a number of different reasons but is often caused by your internal network not being configured to prioritize the voice packets over all other packets. For example, if you are streaming video while someone else in the household is uploading some pictures to a cloud application, your bandwidth may be consumed by this video and data traffic, leaving very little room for your voice calls to get through. Think of your Internet connection as a pipe and only so much can fit through that pipe at one time. The way around this is to enable Quality of Service (QoS) on a home network router or telephone adapter, and set it to prioritize voice traffic to the Internet. This effectively reserves some room in your pipe such that you will always have room for your phone calls. For more information and help on potential setup, installation, configuration and ongoing issues, please visit our VoIP troubleshooting section.
Don't jump to conclusions and blame your VoIP provider for poor quality of calls as it may actually be an issue with your own home network.
VoIP phone service has become a real option to millions of households in North America with the incredible speeds and reliability provided by modern day Internet service providers. Many home users see savings in excess of $500 per year on their phone bills. This is one great reason why people consider making the switch to VoIP phone service. Did the speed test above indicate that your internet connection was fast enough for VoIP? If so, check out the great deals available using the table on this page.
To find out more about residential (home) VoIP phone service visit our dedicated section to residential VoIP. Here you will find more information about VoIP for home phone users, including educational articles, provider comparison tables, user submitted reviews and more.
The savings don't stop with home phone service. Many businesses in North America are enjoying paying up to 80% less on their monthly phone bills after switching to a VoIP phone service. If your interest is in a VoIP solution for your business then check out our dedicated section to business VoIP. This provides access to many articles and whitepapers that can help with any questions you have, including FAQ's, service features guides and more. You will also have access to provider comparison tables, user submitted reviews and our free price quote service.
#63 : Posted by Ds
Like mentioned in some previous posts, VoIP call quality always sounds good to me, but I'm told by the person on the other end that my voice breaks up occasionally. In your internet speed test I get download=31 Mbps, upload=3.8 Mbps, ping=52.5 ms, jitter=7.11 ms. The speed test on the Ooma website gives ping=13 ms and jitter=3 ms, although just re-ran it and got ping=12 ms and jitter=6 ms. Their tech support told me I need to have jitter and ping less than 5 ms and packet loss = 0%, and that I should contact my ISP. Is my internet connection really not stable enough to support VoIP? Thank you in advance for your assistance.
-> Response: I don't think the ping is too bad (ping packets don't get high priority so not surprising it's higher latency).
As for jitter, 7ms is fine, anything under about 30ms should not be noticeable. Packet loss of 0% is perfect, in reality it can handle 1 or 2%.
So then the question is why your uplink is having issues. Although you have relatively slow uplink speeds, a VoIP call is under 100Kbps typically so it should be fine unless you are uploading photos or the likes at the same time. I'm wondering if this is more related to your setup. Are you using 2 routers in your setup perhaps? Is SIP ALG enabled in your router(s)?
#62 : Posted by Linda Latto
My jitter shows 51ms. Is that really bad?
-> Response: It's not too bad, should be fine.
#61 : Posted by Kenn
How can I reduce the ping, my online phone service is very fuzzy
-> Response: That is a function of how good your Internet connection is so I'm guessing your ISP may be having issues if this was good previously.
#60 : Posted by Jonathan Scarpelli
Why would would download and upload jitter stats be radically different, e.g., 2ms download and 120 upload?
-> Response: Does it consistently say this and what speeds are you seeing for uplink and downlink?
It is not unusual for cable and DSL to be asymmetric with speeds, though I'm a little surprised the jitter numbers vary by that much.
#59 : Posted by Tony Taylor
Our voip phones keep dropping calls or fading out. I cannot get a definitve answer from our internet or service provider.
-> Response: Looking at the logs for the test results it seems you have SIP ALG enabled in your router. I would recommend disabling SIP ALG.
#58 : Posted by Howard Eads
The test had all green lights. We run a POS system on this Internet too. Will it also handle VoIP?
-> Response: If all green you should be good. If you have good Internet then there should be no issues running POS and VoIP.
#57 : Posted by Gordon Webb
Your test software worked fine for me with windows 10 and chrome Version - good website but your SIP ALG advice did not work - test shows it is off but router shows it is on - switching it off on the router stopped VoIP! Otherwise all good advice and very useful website
-> Response: That is unusual but I think it implies that your VoIP provider requires ALG to handle the Network Address Translation for the SIP traffic. In other words it is doing ALG correctly (unusual for most routers!) and that is why the test is seeing it as off. Most routers are terrible when it comes to ALG and that is why VoIP providers tend to prefer it off and they handle NAT for the SIP traffic at the server side.
#56 : Posted by Christopher Wroten
Like comments 51 & 55, I was unable to get this work on my W10 laptop with either FF 72.0.2 or Chrome 79.0.3945.130. Reinstalled BCS twice and verified it was started and running as a service (manual interaction with console window worked fine.) Refreshed voip-test.htm window multiple times from both browsers without ever seeing the "Click to start test" button.
-> Response: Please try again, we updated servers and there may have been a firewall issue preventing the test from running.
#55 : Posted by Jj
I installed the software but I could never get it to work. Win 10 with FF 71.0. Any ideas/clues?
-> Response: I tested this on Windows 10 and FF 71.0 and it worked fine for me. Can you try deleting your cache and bringing up a new Web browser? Failing that try re-installing the software again.
#54 : Posted by John Anthony
Is it possible to use VOIP telephone if my internet is by wifi hot spot only?
-> Response: I would run our VoIP test to see how well it scores. You could also try using Skype or Google voice as a quick test. We have seen this work fine in the past but also others have issues so test to be sure.
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