Ping - how does it relate to speed

Grant

Grant

Honorary Master
Joined
Mar 27, 2007
Messages
69,728
Reaction score
38,250
Location
Behind the grassy knoll
help me here, what is the relationship.
i understand the ping result is the time it takes a package of data to do a round trip from my laptop to a certain destination and back again.

how though, does it relate to speed.
 
It doesn't, it's not really a good indicator of anything except maybe connectivity & latency.
 
Ping to me is like ponder said it's more related to the quality of your connection than the speed.
 
Ping relates to responsiveness not overall speed.

On a basic level ping would be how long it takes for water to get from the beginning of a house pipe to the end of it (and technically back again).

It tells you how quickly a drop of water would get from one side to the other, but it doesn't really tell you how much water can get there. That's where bandwidth or "speed" as you put it comes into the equation.

1MB DSL, 4MB DSL, 10MB DSL will all take equally long to get a single drop of water from one end to the other as the latency (ping) is inherent to the technology. However the different line speeds can get considerably more water there as it becomes faster.

So for latency intensive requirements such as online gaming or voice calls the ping/latency is more important than the overall speed. For streaming video on the other hand the overall speed/bandwidth is what makes you receive higher quality video and the latency/ping is somewhat irrelevant and only really helps it start faster.
 
Thor187 said:
Ping to me is like ponder said it's more related to the quality of your connection than the speed.
Click to expand...


Yes and no.

Jitter (or lack there of) would be a more appropriate measure of quality. But then again latency/ping and jitter go hand in hand so you can't really gauge the one without the other.

A super low momentary ping however means nothing if there is terrible jitter on the line. Then a higher ping with less jitter would be preferred as it offers and overall more consistent connection.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Yes and no.

Jitter (or lack there of) would be a more appropriate measure of quality. But then again latency/ping and jitter go hand in hand so you can't really gauge the one without the other.

A super low momentary ping however means nothing if there is terrible jitter on the line. Then a higher ping with less jitter would be preferred as it offers and overall more consistent connection.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of jitter.

OP I think SauRoNZA probably gave the best answer to this question I have ever heard.
 
Like havoc said latency has an effect on application responsiveness and tcp throughout. E.g on my overseas network jumbo frames etc are enabled
 
SauRoNZA said:
Ping relates to responsiveness not overall speed.

On a basic level ping would be how long it takes for water to get from the beginning of a house pipe to the end of it (and technically back again).

It tells you how quickly a drop of water would get from one side to the other, but it doesn't really tell you how much water can get there. That's where bandwidth or "speed" as you put it comes into the equation.

1MB DSL, 4MB DSL, 10MB DSL will all take equally long to get a single drop of water from one end to the other as the latency (ping) is inherent to the technology. However the different line speeds can get considerably more water there as it becomes faster.

So for latency intensive requirements such as online gaming or voice calls the ping/latency is more important than the overall speed. For streaming video on the other hand the overall speed/bandwidth is what makes you receive higher quality video and the latency/ping is somewhat irrelevant and only really helps it start faster.
Click to expand...


Excellent explanation. !!
 
SauRoNZA said:
Ping relates to responsiveness not overall speed.

On a basic level ping would be how long it takes for water to get from the beginning of a house pipe to the end of it (and technically back again).

It tells you how quickly a drop of water would get from one side to the other, but it doesn't really tell you how much water can get there. That's where bandwidth or "speed" as you put it comes into the equation.

1MB DSL, 4MB DSL, 10MB DSL will all take equally long to get a single drop of water from one end to the other as the latency (ping) is inherent to the technology. However the different line speeds can get considerably more water there as it becomes faster.

So for latency intensive requirements such as online gaming or voice calls the ping/latency is more important than the overall speed. For streaming video on the other hand the overall speed/bandwidth is what makes you receive higher quality video and the latency/ping is somewhat irrelevant and only really helps it start faster.
Click to expand...

I'm still of the opinion that all network engineers are plumbers. :)
 
LOL.

I wish that was the case then I would do my own plumbing at home.

It works well as an analogy because if you want to get more technical as to why bandwidth usage affects ping it explains everything quite easily.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Ping relates to responsiveness not overall speed.

On a basic level ping would be how long it takes for water to get from the beginning of a house pipe to the end of it (and technically back again).

It tells you how quickly a drop of water would get from one side to the other, but it doesn't really tell you how much water can get there. That's where bandwidth or "speed" as you put it comes into the equation.

1MB DSL, 4MB DSL, 10MB DSL will all take equally long to get a single drop of water from one end to the other as the latency (ping) is inherent to the technology. However the different line speeds can get considerably more water there as it becomes faster.

So for latency intensive requirements such as online gaming or voice calls the ping/latency is more important than the overall speed. For streaming video on the other hand the overall speed/bandwidth is what makes you receive higher quality video and the latency/ping is somewhat irrelevant and only really helps it start faster.
Click to expand...

Nicely done!
 
Had a guy on DOTA 2 exclaim "yeah man, I have EPIC ping because of my 10Mb ADSL !"
I kept quiet, as he was on my team, and 6 minutes in I didnt want to start a fight with him...
But yeah..
 
Anthro said:
Had a guy on DOTA 2 exclaim "yeah man, I have EPIC ping because of my 10Mb ADSL !"
I kept quiet, as he was on my team, and 6 minutes in I didnt want to start a fight with him...
But yeah..
Click to expand...

Maybe he meant his copper quality isn't good enough for 10 meg, hence unstable line, hence crappy latency.
 
Anthro said:
Had a guy on DOTA 2 exclaim "yeah man, I have EPIC ping because of my 10Mb ADSL !"
I kept quiet, as he was on my team, and 6 minutes in I didnt want to start a fight with him...
But yeah..
Click to expand...

Actually...


Although speed does not change raw latency it changes how quick a chunk of data can be delivered. The bigger the chunk of data, the longer it takes to deliver and the higher the effective latency.

So, your 'in game latency/ping' can improve, especially when moving from 4Mbps to 10Mbps because you get double the uplink speed. It all depends on the game and the size of the typical 'message' being sent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X