Latency is crucial when choosing an ISP

[Daniel Puchert]

The forgotten advantage fibre has over cellular Internet

When choosing an Internet service provider (ISP), download speeds are the go-to metric for most South Africans.

However, latency (often referred to as ‘ping’) should be a crucial consideration for many people, since it affects real-time responsiveness.

 

[Johand]

Also high bandwidth fiber is better than low bandwidth fiber from an experience perspective. Your experience is just better - web sites loads smoother and faster. Less "pauses".

That is why I get frustrated with people just claiming that nobody needs 500Mbps+ packages. It isn't about the volume of data. It is about experience.

It is a bit like high refresh rate monitors. You don't think it matters until you got used to one and then have to go back to a low refresh rate monitor.

 

[Ninja'd]

Staff Writer looking at some of the entries of mybb speedtest competition:

 

[cavedog]

But according to the article Afrihost is not the fastest ISP because latency is higher but according to my test Afrihost is the fastest fibre because the latency is the lowest.

 

[ronnie_94]

But according to the article Afrihost is not the fastest ISP because latency is higher but according to my test Afrihost is the fastest fibre because the latency is the lowest.

View attachment 1816995

Interesting

 

[Johand]

But according to the article Afrihost is not the fastest ISP because latency is higher but according to my test Afrihost is the fastest fibre because the latency is the lowest.

View attachment 1816995

Latency to where....

You need to test to multiple servers in the different part of the world you will actually access data/ services.

Not all ISPs route efficiently. And it is different from where you are. I remember back when (and it might have changed) that if you got Cell C fiber you are routed through Joburg even if you stay in Cape Town and other ISPs can route you directly in Cape Town. So minimum latency on Cell C for anybody in CT was like 20ms but could have been 1 ms for people in Jhb.

 

[cavedog]

Latency to where....

You need to test to multiple servers in the different part of the world you will actually access data/ services.

Not all ISPs route efficiently. And it is different from where you are. I remember back when (and it might have changed) that if you got Cell C fiber you are routed through Joburg even if you stay in Cape Town and other ISPs can route you directly in Cape Town. So minimum latency on Cell C for anybody in CT was like 20ms but could have been 1 ms for people in Jhb.

You are asking the wrong person because these articles say the best ISP with the lowest ping is the average latency of speedtests run to the mybroadband speedtest server...

That is what I'm disputing because that metric is flawed because speedtests of mobile, and ADSL will drag the averages down so to speak even fibre connections which are some distance from Teraco for example Nelspruit, Bloemfontein, East London, Port Elizabeth, Empangeni, Richards Bay, Vryheid.

The lowest they will get is around 8-15ms even on fibre so their tests if there are a lot of them will skew the average compared to an ISP like Cybersmart which target very specific areas.

 

[pexxie]

Perhaps it might make cents to note that we are talking specifically about last-mile latency in this article? We can possibly do something about our last-mile latency, but once we're in the ISP's backbone....we can at best pray for mercy, hoping we pop up somewhere on the other end of their backbone.

EDIT: My office in Gillitts: https://speedtest.mybroadband.co.za/result/33763378
Crikey! We might need decimals for these ping numbers.

 

[RedViking]

You are asking the wrong person because these articles say the best ISP with the lowest ping is the average latency of speedtests run to the mybroadband speedtest server...

That is what I'm disputing because that metric is flawed because speedtests of mobile, and ADSL will drag the averages down so to speak even fibre connections which are some distance from Teraco for example Nelspruit, Bloemfontein, East London, Port Elizabeth, Empangeni, Richards Bay, Vryheid.

The lowest they will get is around 8-15ms even on fibre so their tests if there are a lot of them will skew the average compared to an ISP like Cybersmart which target very specific areas.

It's not flawed however when Afrihost is voted the best ISP.

 

[NR7]

Focusing on online gaming, the in-game difference between the good fibre ISPs on local servers are almost negligible.

The difference on foreign servers though, they all suck for gaming. 168ms on Cool Ideas to Europe (Afrihost trial account often over 180ms) versus 120ms to Bahrain and Singapore with Exitlag enabled.

 

[Carl_Johnson]

And so too is latex. Especially when choosing an ISP. Believe me, somewhere down the line you going to need it.

 

[cavedog]

It's not flawed however when Afrihost is voted the best ISP.

It is fundamentally flawed yes because basting best ISP on speed is also not accurate that is why Afrihost will NEVER win best fibre ISP because there are slower subscribers like mobile and adsl that drags the averages down compared to Fibre only ISP's and if you start factoring in stuff like the amount of FNO's offered on ISP's it becomes even more of a wildcard.