diff --git a/docker/telemetry/alloy/config.alloy b/docker/telemetry/alloy/config.alloy
index f56a947426..87cb52ca16 100644
--- a/docker/telemetry/alloy/config.alloy
+++ b/docker/telemetry/alloy/config.alloy
@@ -189,7 +189,14 @@ otelcol.connector.spanmetrics "xrpld" {
   histogram {
     unit = "ms"
     explicit {
-      buckets = ["1ms", "5ms", "10ms", "25ms", "50ms", "100ms", "250ms", "500ms", "1s", "5s"]
+      // Buckets MUST stay strictly ascending (the connector binary-searches
+      // them and silently misbuckets otherwise) and MUST match the two
+      // otel-collector-config*.yaml lists. Sub-second boundaries cover
+      // RPC/tx/ledger spans; 2s-4s resolve second-scale consensus spans
+      // (consensus.round ~3.9s, consensus.establish ~1.9s) that used to pile
+      // into one 1s-5s bucket; 10s/30s give the ledger.acquire catch-up tail
+      // (~17% exceeds 5s) a measurable home so its p95/p99 stop reading +Inf.
+      buckets = ["1ms", "5ms", "10ms", "25ms", "50ms", "100ms", "250ms", "500ms", "1s", "2s", "3s", "4s", "5s", "10s", "30s"]
     }
   }