Most businesses choose VoIP providers based on price and features. Almost nobody asks "where are your data centers?" That is a mistake that costs you call quality every single day.
The Physics Problem
Voice travels at the speed of light through fiber optic cables. But it does not travel in a straight line — it follows the cable path through data centers, peering points, and network hops.
A call from New York to a data center in Los Angeles adds 60-80ms of one-way latency. That does not sound like much, but ITU-T G.114 recommends keeping one-way delay under 150ms for acceptable quality. If your provider's data center is 80ms away and the person you are calling is another 50ms from your provider's interconnect point, you are already at 130ms — dangerously close to the threshold.
Real Latency Measurements
I tested 6 VoIP providers from an office in Chicago:
| Provider | Nearest DC Location | One-Way Latency | MOS Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Provider A | Chicago | 8ms | 4.5 |
| Provider B | Dallas | 25ms | 4.3 |
| Provider C | Virginia | 22ms | 4.3 |
| Provider D | Los Angeles | 52ms | 4.0 |
| Provider E | London (!) | 95ms | 3.5 |
| Provider F | Unknown | 78ms | 3.7 |
The difference between 8ms and 95ms is the difference between "this sounds like you are in the room" and "there is an annoying delay on every call."
What to Ask Your Provider
- Where are your data centers? Get city names, not just "multi-region."
- Which data center will serve my office? Some providers auto-route to nearest. Others do not.
- Do you have points of presence (PoPs) near my location? PoPs reduce the last-mile latency.
- Can I run a latency test before signing? Any provider confident in their network will let you test.
- Do you use direct media paths? This means voice traffic goes directly between endpoints instead of being relayed through the data center — dramatically reducing latency.
The Multi-Office Complication
If you have offices in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, your provider needs data centers near all three. A single-DC provider means at least two of your offices will have suboptimal latency.
| Setup | NYC Latency | Chicago Latency | LA Latency |
|---|---|---|---|
| DC in Virginia only | 15ms | 25ms | 65ms |
| DC in Dallas only | 35ms | 20ms | 35ms |
| DCs in Virginia + Oregon | 15ms | 22ms | 20ms |
| DCs in Virginia + Dallas + Oregon | 12ms | 8ms | 15ms |
check providers like VestaCall at https://vestacall.com for transparent pricing operates geo-distributed infrastructure with automatic routing to the nearest point of presence.
