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Sender emits at 20ms intervals. Network adds jitter. Buffer smooths or underruns.
What you're seeing
Jitter buffer trades latency for smoothness. Set too small: underruns (audio gaps). Set too large: noticeable delay. Modern adaptive jitter buffers (WebRTC) tune in real time to network conditions.
Rule of thumb: target depth = p95 of recent inter-arrival jitter. Update every 100-500ms.
★ KEY TAKEAWAY
Network jitter ≠ uniform inter-arrival. Buffer absorbs variation; too small = underruns, too large = lag.
▶ WHAT TO TRY
- Slide Buffer ms low — see underruns rise.
- Increase Network jitter to stress the buffer.
- Production VAD/jitter buffers adapt continuously to the p95.