**Choppy or Robotic Call Audio — What Causes It and Fixes** > Robotic, stuttering or delayed voice on an internet call is jitter and packet loss, not low bandwidth. What actually causes it and which fixes are worth trying. Source: https://telvio.app/help/choppy-or-robotic-audio/ · updated: 2026-09-04 1. [Home](https://telvio.app/) 2. [Help](https://telvio.app/help/) 3. The call sounds robotic, choppy or delayed Audio # The call sounds robotic, choppy or delayed Voice needs very little bandwidth and a great deal of consistency. Almost everything that makes a call sound bad is a timing problem, which is why a fast connection can still sound terrible. - Jitter, not bandwidth - Fixes ranked by effect - Works for any calling app The short answer Robotic or stuttering audio is caused by packets arriving late, out of order, or not at all — **jitter and packet loss** — and not by a slow connection. A call uses roughly 30 to 50 kilobits per second in each direction, which is a rounding error on any modern link. What it needs is for those packets to arrive at an even pace, and that is what shared WiFi, congested mobile cells and busy home networks are worst at. The three fixes worth trying first, in order of how often they work: move closer to the router or switch to the 5 GHz band; stop anything on your network that is uploading; or switch to mobile data and compare. ## The fixes that actually change things 1. 1 ### Get closer to the router, or move to the 5 GHz band Distance and interference degrade WiFi timing long before they degrade throughput, which is why a browser feels fine in a room where calls are unusable. If your router publishes separate 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz network names, the 5 GHz one carries far less interference over a short distance. If it publishes one name for both, standing nearer the router achieves most of the same thing. 2. 2 ### Stop anything that is uploading Your outgoing voice competes with your outgoing traffic, and home connections have much less upstream capacity than downstream. A cloud backup, a large email attachment, a video call somebody else in the house is on, or a game console downloading an update will each make your voice arrive broken while everything else on the network looks fine. Pause the upload and listen to the difference on the same call. 3. 3 ### Compare against mobile data Turn WiFi off and call the same number. If the audio is clean, the WiFi network is the cause and no setting inside the app will improve it. If both are equally bad, the problem is further out — the destination network, or the route between them — and that is worth reporting rather than troubleshooting. 4. 4 ### Take off the headset for one call Bluetooth adds its own compression and its own delay on top of the network's. A headset with a weak link, a low battery or interference from a crowded 2.4 GHz band produces audio artefacts that sound exactly like a bad connection. One call on the handset separates the two. 5. 5 ### Move away from other 2.4 GHz sources Microwave ovens, older cordless phones, some baby monitors and a neighbour's WiFi all share the 2.4 GHz band, and interference there shows up as bursts of loss rather than a steady slowdown. Audio that breaks up at predictable times of day, or whenever a particular appliance runs, is this. ## Why bandwidth is the wrong thing to measure A speed test answers the question “how much data can this connection move in a burst”. A call asks a different question: “will each small packet arrive within a few tens of milliseconds of the last one”. A connection can be excellent at the first and poor at the second, and that combination is the single most common reason people are surprised that their fast connection sounds bad. Three measurements matter for voice. **Latency** is how long a packet takes to arrive; above roughly 300 milliseconds each way, people start talking over each other because the natural rhythm of conversation breaks down. **Jitter** is the variation in that delay, and it is the one that produces the robotic quality: the app holds a small buffer to smooth arrivals out, and audio that varies more than the buffer can absorb comes out in fragments. **Packet loss** is packets that never arrive, and the audible result is dropouts — small at one or two per cent, and unmistakable above five. A speed test reports none of these usefully, which is why it is a poor diagnostic here. The comparison against mobile data is worth more than any measurement, because it changes exactly one variable. ## When the problem is on the other end Audio quality is only as good as the worst link in the chain, and half of that chain belongs to the person you are calling. If they are on a mobile in a weak signal area, in a lift, on a train, or on a congested cell, your side can be flawless and the call will still sound poor. The way to tell is to change one side at a time. Call somebody else from the same place on the same connection: if that call is clean, the problem was the other end. Call the same person again later: if it is clean then, it was transient congestion somewhere in between. Neither test takes long and both are worth more than any amount of adjusting settings. There is also a limit imposed by the telephone network itself, and it is worth knowing so you are not chasing something unachievable. A call that ends on an ordinary landline or mobile is carried over the traditional network for its final leg, and that leg is narrowband — the same audio quality as any other phone call. An internet call to a phone can sound as good as a phone call and cannot sound better, however good your connection is. App-to-app calls, which never touch that network, are the ones that can sound wider than a telephone. ## Things that are commonly suggested and do not help - **Restarting the app.** Audio quality is decided by the network on a per-call basis; a fresh start does not change the route. - **Clearing cache or reinstalling.** Neither touches anything involved in carrying audio, and reinstalling means setting the app up again for no benefit. - **Buying more bandwidth.** A call needs less than a tenth of the slowest broadband package sold. Upgrading a package that is already fast enough changes nothing about jitter. - **A VPN, in most cases.** It adds a hop and usually adds delay. It is worth exactly one test on a network you suspect of filtering, and is not a quality tool. - **Turning the volume up.** Loud and broken is still broken. Volume and clarity are unrelated here. ## What to send us - **Whether it is constant or intermittent**, and if intermittent, whether it correlates with anything — time of day, location, a particular destination. - **Whether mobile data sounds different from WiFi** on the same call to the same number. - **Whether it happens with more than one person you call**, which separates your end from theirs. - **Which country you are calling**, and whether the same problem appears when calling a different country. - **The date, time and your time zone** for two or three affected calls, plus your device model. ## Bottom line Robotic and choppy audio is jitter and packet loss, not a shortage of bandwidth. A call needs 30 to 50 kilobits per second and steady timing, and it is the timing that public networks fail to deliver. Move closer to the router or use 5 GHz, stop anything uploading, and compare against mobile data. Those three account for most of what can be fixed from your side. A call that ends on a landline or mobile is narrowband on its final leg, so it can sound as good as an ordinary phone call and no better. Wider audio is only possible when both ends are apps. ## Frequently asked questions Why does my internet call sound robotic? Robotic audio is jitter: packets arriving at uneven intervals, so the receiving side cannot reassemble the voice smoothly. It is a timing problem rather than a bandwidth problem, which is why it happens on connections that measure fast in a speed test. How much bandwidth does a VoIP call need? Roughly 30 to 50 kilobits per second in each direction, which is far less than any modern connection provides. What matters is consistency of arrival, not capacity, so a fast connection with high jitter sounds worse than a slow, steady one. Why is the audio bad on WiFi but fine on mobile data? WiFi shares a radio band with neighbours and household appliances, and degrades in timing before it degrades in speed. Mobile data usually delivers packets more evenly. If the difference is consistent, the WiFi network is the cause and no app setting will change it. Does a faster internet plan improve call quality? Almost never. A call uses less than a tenth of the slowest broadband package sold, so extra capacity does not address jitter or packet loss. Reducing what else is uploading on the same connection helps far more than buying more of it. Why is there a delay before I hear the other person? That is latency, and it accumulates across the whole path: your connection, the internet route, and the final leg on the destination country's telephone network. Above roughly 300 milliseconds each way, people begin talking over each other because the rhythm of conversation depends on fast turn-taking. Can an internet call sound better than a normal phone call? Not when it ends on a landline or a mobile. That final leg is carried by the traditional telephone network at ordinary telephone audio quality, which sets the ceiling. Calls where both ends are apps are not subject to that limit. ## Related answers - [The call connects but nobody can hear anything](https://telvio.app/help/no-sound-during-a-call/) - [The microphone is not picking you up](https://telvio.app/help/microphone-not-working/) - [The person you call sees a number they do not recognise](https://telvio.app/help/they-see-an-unknown-number/) - [You paid and the credit has not appeared](https://telvio.app/help/credit-did-not-arrive/) ## Still stuck? Write to us with the date, the time and your time zone, and say what you saw. A person reads every message and we aim to reply within 24 hours. 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