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VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol - lets a business make and receive phone calls over the internet instead of a traditional landline or mobile network. It's the backbone of most modern unified communications (UC) environments, and it's also the piece of the network most likely to fail without anyone noticing right away.
This guide covers what VoIP is, why it needs its own dedicated monitoring, and what to look for in a VoIP monitoring tool.
We'll also cover the metrics that actually predict call quality - jitter, packet loss, latency and Mean Opinion Score (MOS) - and how proactive VoIP monitoring keeps them in check before a customer ever hears a dropped call.
Find out more about problem-proofing your UC network with
The Expert Guide To VoIP Testing - Ensuring Your Network Is Capable
Quick answer
VoIP monitoring tracks the technical health of your voice calls in real time - latency, jitter, packet loss and Mean Opinion Score (MOS) - so IT and UC teams can find and fix call quality problems before customers notice them, instead of finding out after a call has already dropped.
Key takeaways
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VoIP converts voice into data packets, which makes call quality dependent on network performance, not just phone hardware.
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Legacy monitoring (Call Detail Records, packet capture) is reactive - it confirms a call failed after the fact, with little visibility across vendors.
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Proactive VoIP monitoring tracks latency, jitter, packet loss, MOS and QoS in real time, across the whole UC environment.
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IR Collaborate gives UC teams a single view of VoIP performance, from the network up to the call itself.
Table of Contents
What is VoIP, and why is VoIP monitoring important?
The short version: VoIP turns your voice into data - so it inherits every problem your network already has.
A VoIP service converts an analog voice signal into digital data, then sends it as packets across your local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or the public internet.
Images sourced: T2K Hosted VoIP
Because a voice call is now just another data stream, its quality depends on the same things that affect any other network traffic: available bandwidth, congestion, and the route each packet takes. That's why VoIP monitoring exists as its own discipline rather than a subset of general network monitoring - a healthy network can still deliver a poor call if voice traffic isn't prioritized and tracked specifically.
Why you need a VoIP monitoring tool
VoIP's biggest strengths are also what make it fragile without monitoring.
Any business running VoIP as a core part of its unified communications network needs performance monitoring in place - because the same qualities that make VoIP worth adopting are the ones that make it vulnerable if nobody's watching.
Advantages:
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Lower cost than landlines,
once you account for reduced per-minute call charges and hardware. -
Increased accessibility,
letting employees make and receive calls from any device with an internet connection. -
Complete portability,
so a phone number and extension move with the employee, not the desk. -
Higher scalability,
adding or removing lines without new physical wiring. -
Advanced features for organizations of any size,
from call routing to conferencing to analytics. -
Support for multitasking,
combining voice, video and messaging in one client. -
More flexibility with softphones,
letting teams take calls from a laptop or mobile app instead of a desk phone.
There are downsides to VoIP too, and they're exactly why VoIP monitoring software is non-negotiable for any organization that depends on it for customer-facing or internal communication.
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VoIP needs a reliable internet connection
- if bandwidth drops, so does call quality. -
It's susceptible to network jitter, packet loss and latency
in a way a traditional phone line isn't. -
Location tracking for emergency calls is more limited
than on a fixed line. -
Some legacy alarm and fax systems aren't compatible with VoIP.
Legacy vs. third-party VoIP monitoring software
Call Detail Records tell you a call happened. They don't tell you why it was bad.
Legacy VoIP monitoring relies on Call Detail Records (CDRs) and packet capture, which at best flag an issue after it's already affected a call. This reactive approach also gives IT teams little to no visibility across multiple vendors or network segments.
Third-party VoIP monitoring software, like IR Collaborate, closes that gap by monitoring VoIP infrastructure continuously rather than after the fact. Teams get real-time visibility into network performance, server health, call quality, VoIP traffic and end user devices, so problems can be resolved before they reach the customer.
1. Cost reductions
Cost is usually the first driver behind any move to IP telephony. Landlines charge for call time; VoIP largely reduces that to a fixed monthly service fee. VoIP monitoring software tracks usage and flags discrepancies, so a cost saving doesn't quietly turn into an unexpected bill.
2. Conferencing made easy
With VoIP, the number of attendees and their location doesn't change the cost of a call. SIP-enabled VoIP conferencing also supports sharing images, video and text alongside voice - something a traditional phone line can't do.
Find out more about SIP monitoring in our comprehensive guide
3. More efficient unified communication
Remote and hybrid working make workforce visibility essential. The most reliable way to stay connected with employees, colleagues and clients - and keep customer satisfaction high - is with the insight a dedicated monitoring platform provides.
The strongest VoIP monitoring software tracks devices and locations across a distributed workforce, proactively flags network issues, and reports on Quality of Service (QoS) metrics and VoIP call quality.
4. Simplified installation, scalability and integration
VoIP lets you add or remove lines as headcount changes, and integrates with a wide range of existing business systems. That flexibility is also a risk: every new integration is one more point of failure, unless it's covered by monitoring.
How VoIP monitoring helps you get ahead of call quality problems
Call quality has a short list of causes. A good monitoring tool tracks all of them, in real time.
VoIP call quality can be affected by a wide range of factors inside your network. Monitoring and troubleshooting gives you a clear, real-time read on what's actually happening, so you can act on it before it affects the end user experience.
1. Latency, packet loss and jitter
Latency, packet loss and jitter are the three core metrics for judging a network's connection quality, and each can degrade VoIP calls independently. Tracking and analyzing them together helps you identify and resolve performance issues before they turn into a dropped or degraded call for the user. For a closer look at how latency specifically affects real-time communication, see our guide to network latency.
2. Mean Opinion Score (MOS)
A MOS score rates a call's quality on a scale from 1 (unacceptable) to 5 (excellent). It's affected by packet loss, bandwidth, latency, codec, jitter and hardware - which is why organizations need to
