How to Run VoIP Quality Tests and Improve Your MOS
A VoIP quality test measures the performance of your network connection. The test simulates a set number of calls on your network and uses key metrics to determine how calls will sound in different situations.
This can help you understand whether your connection is strong enough before implementing a VoIP system as well as alert you to potential problems post-deployment.
Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is an industry standard metric for VoIP call quality – it’s a simple 1-5 rating system with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best.
Anything above 4 is sufficient and scores below 3.5 should be considered unacceptable. Below that threshold, users are more likely to experience mic echo, dropped calls, choppy or robotic sound, and cut outs.
This guide covers everything you need to know to perform VoIP testing and make changes to settings to optimize for MOS.
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RingCentral RingX
Contents
employees per company size
Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+)
Medium (250-999 employees), Large (1,000-4,999 employees), Enterprise (5,000+ employees)
medium, large, enterprise
features
Hosted PBX, Managed PBX, Remote User Capability, and more
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talkroot
employees per company size
Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+)
any company size
any company size
features
Call management/monitoring, call routing, mobile capabilities, and more
What does VoIP quality testing measure?
Before we get into how to run a VoIP quality test, it’s important to understand what metrics you’ll get and what they mean.
Every VoIP test is different, but most measure things like:
- upload and download speed – Measures how fast data packets can move through your network. In general, the higher the speed, the better the quality.
- Bandwidth — The maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over your network. This directly affects the number of simultaneous calls you can make before the quality degrades.
- Tremble – Variation between sent and received data packets. If these variations are significant, users may miss entire words or sentences during a call.
- latency (or ping) – Measures the delay from one caller to another. High latency is often caused by network congestion and resulting echoes.
- packet loss – Refers to data packets that never reach their final destination. If it is more than 1%, the call is likely to have poor audio and other distortions.
Many will also let you simulate calls with different VoIP codecs. This is a parameter that defines how much compression occurs during a call. Greater compression makes packets smaller, resulting in faster transmissions and reduced network congestion.
But too much compression can degrade the audio quality to such an extent that it becomes unrecognizable. The key is to find a good balance that works for your team.
Finally, some of the better VoIP quality tests take all of these elements and metrics into account and calculate your MOS.
It’s also worth noting that some tools let you run tests for different numbers of calls simultaneously, and you may even be able to change the origin location of the calls.
As you adjust different parameters and variables, you may get a different MOS. For example, your score may be perfect right next to your router, but your score may be lower if you’re on the other side of the building.
SEE: Learn how to optimize your VoIP network.
How to Run VoIP Quality Test
There are dozens of tools that let you test VoIP quality.
To keep it simple, I’ll show you how to do it for free in just a few minutes, and what to use if you’re a developer or need more detailed information.
Free Online VoIP Quality Test
Many business phone providers have their own online VoIP quality tests that you can use for free. They’re very easy and quick, making them perfect if you’re not sure what’s going on and need a simple way to tell if your network is stable enough.
Most measure latency, jitter, upload speed, and download speed. Some (but not all) also measure packet loss and calculate your MOS.
RingCentral’s Service Quality Test This is one of the best free options I’ve seen.

The best thing about this test is that it gives you MOS. It also measures packet loss, latency and jitter in your audit summary.
Another feature of RingCentral’s testing is the ability to adjust your codec. You can also test 50 calls simultaneously and run the test for five minutes – the more you test, the better chance you’ll have of finding the problem.
Once the test is finished, it does a good job of explaining what all the numbers mean and whether your connection passes or not.
It is as simple as it is to operate. All you have to do is select your preferred number of concurrent calls, adjust the duration, and change the codec if you want.
While RingCentral is one of the most comprehensive free options, there are other options you can use to verify your results if you prefer.
There are other VoIP quality tests on the market that you can use, and it might be a good idea to try several times to see if you get consistent results across the board. Here are some others worth checking out:
- Nextiva test – Simple option to test up to 200 calls simultaneously.
- uma’s exam – Easy way to check latency, jitter, upload and download speeds.
- 8×8 test – Similar to Ouma, but lets you change hosts.
Overall, RingCentral is the most detailed, but these other free VoIP quality tests can give you more data points to ensure accuracy.
SEE: Learn more about our favorite VoIP providers: RingCentral Review | Nextiva Review | Ooma Review | 8×8 review.
Network monitoring software (paid with free trial)
Network monitoring software is commonly used by IT network administrators to ensure that their network is running smoothly. It is also useful for identifying problems with various components (routers, servers, firewalls, switches, etc.).
You can also use them to test VoIP network quality, and they provide far more detailed information than any of the free tools out there.
orion VoIP Network Quality Manager is one of the best. Instead of periodic one-off tests, it runs continuously in the background.

Although SolarWinds is not free, there is a 30-day free trial. You can test your network for an entire month to see how its performance changes over time. From there, you can decide whether you want to continue using it or not.
Beyond basic VoIP quality statistics, it also provides WAN performance metrics. It also provides relevant information related to performance issues.
For example, you can see specific IP addresses of devices that are causing jitter, latency, or packet loss. This will help you determine whether call quality issues are related to your network hardware or something else.
The software does a lot more than that, but it’s a great option if you need real-time data or more data points to understand and improve your MOS.
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