What is Jitter?
In Voice over IP (VoIP), jitter is the variation in the time between packets arriving, caused by network congestion, timing drift, or route changes. A jitter buffer can be used to handle jitter.
Among the causes of jitter are electromagnetic interference (EMI) and crosstalk with other signals. Jitter can cause a display monitor to flicker; affect the ability of the processor in a personal computer to perform as intended; introduce clicks or other undesired effects in audio signals, and a loss of transmitted data between network devices.
It is a term used to indicate a momentary fluctuation in the transmission signal. This happens in computing when a data packet arrives either ahead or behind a standard clock cycle. In telecommunication, it may result from an abrupt variation in signal characteristics, such as the interval between successive pulses.