A VoIP pace take a look at measures the efficiency of an Web connection to see if it might deal with Web-based communications.

These exams simulate knowledge transmissions of a VoIP name out of your community, sometimes measuring latency, jitter, add pace, and obtain pace. When examined collectively, these outcomes may give you a powerful sense of what calls will likely be like to your staff.

Whether or not you are keen on putting in a VoIP system, making community modifications or troubleshooting an issue, a pace take a look at takes lower than 30 seconds.

Three free VoIP pace take a look at choices

There are dozens of free pace exams on the market. These three are among the many greatest as a result of they arrive from respected enterprise telephone providers.

I encourage you to attempt all three – it’s also possible to discover different free choices.

1. RingCentral’s free VoIP pace take a look at

RingCentral is likely one of the greatest enterprise communication options available on the market. Trusted by greater than 400,000+ organizations worldwide, its VoIP expertise powers every part from small enterprise telephone methods to contact facilities, all-in-one communications suites and every part in between.

Extra about RingCentral: RingCentral Evaluation | RingCentral vs Dialpad.

His free VoIP pace take a look at is likely one of the most superior choices you can see. Though the take a look at takes barely longer to run, you’re going to get a number of particulars that others don’t present.

Earlier than you start, set the variety of simultaneous calls that may be made in your community. I like to recommend conservatively estimating larger than you want, as this ensures your community can deal with even the worst-case situation.

It is possible for you to to set the take a look at name length, which varies from one to 5 minutes. The longer you run the take a look at, the higher the prospect of detecting potential issues. Two minutes is normally ample.

It additionally offers you the choice to attempt it with totally different VoIP codecs. In case you’re unsure what this implies, you may go away it on the default.

The take a look at measures jitter and packet loss. Your audit abstract will likely be colour coded (inexperienced, yellow and purple) for all measures so you may shortly see the place you handed or failed.

That is all primarily based on RingCentral’s advice of lower than 30ms of jitter and packet loss below 1%.

The perfect half although is the MOS (Imply Opinion Rating). It’s a easy 1-5 rating scale, with 5 being the absolute best rating. In order for you a fast reply, you may ignore every part else and simply have a look at this quantity—if it is a 4 or 5, you are secure to proceed.

The primary limitation of this take a look at is that it solely allows you to take a look at as much as 50 simultaneous calls. Whereas that is sufficient for many companies, others assist as much as 200 free exams.

Aside from that, additionally, you will want to put in a plugin to run it. It is completely secure to do that and you may take away it if you’re completed.

2. Nextiva community high quality pace take a look at device

Nextiva is one other business chief on this planet of VoIP telephone methods and enterprise communications. It is a wonderful selection for startups, scaling groups, and enterprise organizations that wish to prioritize buyer engagement.

Extra on Nextiva: Nextiva Evaluation | Nextiva vs RingCentral.

Nextiva’s VoIP Pace ​​Take a look at can be utterly free, however takes much less time than RingCentral’s.

As with RingCentral, you may want to put in a plugin to run it. It’s utterly secure and takes a matter of seconds to put in.

One of many extra distinctive elements of this take a look at is the power to pick name origins. This may be helpful in case you have shoppers or places of work throughout the nation.

This may enhance the accuracy of your outcomes, and you may run the take a look at a number of occasions from totally different places to simulate calls coming in from throughout the nation. You may be shocked how location and distance have an effect on your outcomes.

I additionally like that Nextiva allows you to take a look at as much as 200 simultaneous calls (in comparison with simply 50 with RingCentral).

Nextiva’s take a look at exhibits latency, obtain pace, add pace, your IP tackle, packet loss and jitter. Based on Nextiva’s pointers, packet loss needs to be at 0%. Jitter and ping (or community latency) ought to each be beneath 70 ms.

3. Ooma Free VoIP Pace ​​Take a look at

Ooma is a wonderful different to conventional workplace areas that require bodily desk telephones. The plug and play {hardware} makes it simple for even the smallest groups to stand up and working in lower than an hour.

Extra about Ooma: Ooma Evaluation | Ooma vs RingCentral.

His free VoIP pace take a look at is the only of the three. It takes lower than 30 seconds to run and doesn’t require downloading any plugins.

Regardless of its simplicity, you’re going to get all of the important info it’s essential to decide whether or not or not your community can deal with VoIP calls.

The take a look at measures ping, jitter, obtain pace and add pace. You can too change the host location and run varied exams to see how your outcomes differ primarily based on location.

However this device’s simplicity has some drawbacks. For one, it would not truly let you know find out how to learn the outcomes — you will discover that elsewhere on Ooma’s web site, although. This is the reply so you do not have to go on a scavenger hunt: jitter needs to be lower than 30 ms and latency (ping) needs to be lower than 150 ms.

For 2, Ooma doesn’t mean you can run exams for concurrent calls. You may have to do some math to determine in case your community is powerful sufficient.

This means 256 kbps upstream and downstream per name. In case you assume your workplace can have 4 simultaneous calls, your add and obtain speeds needs to be at the very least 1024.

Lastly, it would not measure packet loss, so you may want to make use of an alternative choice when you assume that will likely be an issue.

Suggestions for working a VoIP pace take a look at

Whereas testing VoIP pace is comparatively easy, there are a couple of methods you should use to make sure accuracy and get probably the most out of your outcomes.

Do exams at totally different occasions of the day

You’ll probably get totally different outcomes when you run the identical take a look at a number of occasions all through the day. It is a good factor as a result of it will increase the accuracy of your outcomes.

Operating the take a look at at 5am in an empty workplace may be very totally different from 2pm when dozens of individuals are utilizing gadgets in your community. Some exams truly advocate having an idle web connection (no different functions in use) when working VoIP pace exams.

However that will not let you know the entire image. Utilizing an idle connection would not actually simulate an actual world situation.

At any given time, there’ll probably be different gadgets in your community.

I additionally simply typically assume it is higher to run your exams when community site visitors is at its heaviest to imitate an actual expertise. You possibly can nonetheless take a look at your pace when the connection is idle as a baseline, however make sure you additionally take a look at all through the day to see how these outcomes change.

Take a look at from totally different places in your workplace

Proximity to your router can have an effect on the outcomes of your VoIP pace take a look at. You can begin by working the take a look at as intently as attainable to simulate the absolute best connection.

After that you must transfer additional away and canopy totally different rooms and flooring in case you have them.

SEE: Try the perfect VoIP routers. Is yours on the record?

Simulate a lot of simultaneous calls

What’s the highest attainable variety of simultaneous calls you may have at any given time? I like to recommend testing at that restrict, but in addition taking it a step additional.

Proper now, chances are you’ll solely have a small workplace with ten workers, every with their very own line.

However what occurs in six months if you do one other spherical of hiring? Or subsequent yr when you have got dozens of workers taking and making calls all through the day? Testing towards elevated demand lets whether or not or not your community can deal with progress.

It additionally exhibits you what can occur in a peak scenario or in case you have guests.

Ask distant employees to check their residence networks

Each community is totally different, so it should not come as a shock to know that residence networks will likely be totally different out of your workplace. As such, it is a good suggestion to run exams from every particular person’s residence to simulate name high quality.

Fortunately, it is tremendous simple. All you must do is ship them a hyperlink to the pace take a look at you need them to take and ask them to screenshot their outcomes.

If the connection is unstable, you may troubleshoot from there to find out in the event that they want totally different {hardware}, a extra highly effective plan, or a brand new Web service supplier.

Take a look at commonly, even after you’ve got deployed your VoIP system

Whereas your preliminary VoIP pace take a look at needs to be fairly correct, issues change.

It’s attainable that your community setup has been up to date or that your ISP is obstructing your connection. It’s also attainable that you’ve extra gadgets than you initially anticipated. To make issues worse, workers might say nothing even when they expertise poor name high quality.

Operating a brand new take a look at each few months might help catch issues earlier than they turn into larger issues.

Even when you nonetheless get “go” scores, you may examine them to your authentic outcomes to see if the brand new exams are trending within the improper route.