## Problems: random pauses in output

Random pauses in output, for example when you've received sound for several minutes from a given connection, then lose three or four seconds of sound, or just random brief interruptions in the sound you hear are most probably due to:

1. The network you're communicating over, whether a local network in your office or the global Internet, is busy and sound packets are being delayed by other traffic. Unlike a file transfer which can proceed at any speed, intelligible audio requires not only adequate bandwidth (data rate) but consistent delivery time. The latter condition breaks down as a network approaches saturation. The only solution (other than connecting to a faster network) is to reschedule your conversation for a time when the network is less heavily loaded. You may be able to reduce the severity of the pauses in the sound you hear by increasing the jitter compensation time, which delays playback of a transmission to provide a margin for delayed packet to arrive.

2. Other tasks running in the background on your computer or that of your interlocutor may be stealing CPU cycles that Speak Freely needs in order to compress/decompress or encrypt/decrypt sound in real time. Terminate the background tasks.