This paper argues that any meaningful "speed test" must include jitter measurement, and users should understand how to interpret it. Before diving into measurement, we establish clear definitions:
| Application | Max Tolerable Jitter | Typical Buffer | Consequence of Excess Jitter | |-------------|----------------------|----------------|-------------------------------| | VoIP (G.711) | 20 ms | 30–50 ms | Choppy audio, clipped words | | Video conferencing (Zoom) | 30 ms | 80 ms | Frozen frames, audio desync | | Online gaming (FPS) | 15 ms | None (real-time) | Rubber-banding, missed shots | | Web browsing | 200 ms | Large (HTTP cache) | Negligible | | 4K streaming | 50 ms | 2–5 seconds | No effect (buffered) |
Where ( D(i-1,i) ) is the difference in packet transit times between packet ( i ) and packet ( i-1 ).