Voice and Data Applications

Learn the difference between the way mobile computers access data and Vocera voice applications.

Wireless networks are often designed to support the needs of mobile computers accessing data, not the requirements of applications that perform real-time processing, like Vocera. Although wireless networks can support both types of traffic, voice applications have delivery requirements that data traffic does not have.

Specifically, voice applications have a very low tolerance for packet delays, latency, or jitter that affect data in only superficial ways. For example, depending upon the sensitivity of the listener, a delay of 150 milliseconds may cause an unacceptable and distinct interruption in a stream of spoken words, but it is essentially imperceptible to a user opening or copying a file.