What is a good ping speed? What is Latency, huh? Ping?
Unless you are a heavy online video gamer, you may not be familiar with these terms.
But if you have ever tried to check why your Internet connection is not going as fast as it should or as you’d like, you might have come across the word ping in the test result.
You do not have to be addicted to video games if you want to do these checks, they are also important when watching streaming content or making video calls.
The speed of your Internet connection depends not only on the speed of upload or download depends on latency as well.
Today, we are going to talk about these parameters: Internet speed, ping and latency.
Also, you will learn how to measure and interpret them so that you can get the most out of your Internet connection.
What is Latency?
Many times, the Internet is compared to a major highway, and yes just like a highway, the amount of data that your internet connection can carry depends on several factors.
The speed of the download would be one of them, which would be equivalent to the speed limits of the highway.
Second, the more lanes the highway has, the more traffic it will be able to travel on the highway, and that would be the same as the bandwidth.
But there is another very important parameter, which is latency, which would be equivalent to traffic on the highway.
Latency is the time it takes for two remote points to communicate: that is, the time it takes for our device to send a request to the server, and it returns a data packet, a response time.
In other words, the higher the latency, the later the web page loads.
What is Ping?
Ping is used to measuring latency or lag (delay) and is expressed in milliseconds (ms). The lower the ping, the better it is for your connection.
Low latency is important when you interact with other elements through a network, such as an online video game or a video call.
On the other hand, when you listen to music, watch a series or a movie in your streaming content provider, the key thing is the speed of the connection.
This is for which you do not need a fast speed of interaction, but only a speed of downloading.
How to Measure Latency and Ping
ADSL tends to offer good latency, and fibre optics offer much better latency, and it is mainly for this reason that ADSL connections are gradually being replaced by fibre.
It’s true that the more bandwidth you’ve hired, you ‘re going to get lower latency, 10 megabytes lower latency, but this isn’t the only factor.
To find out if your connection gives you all the speed that it offers, you can easily perform a speed check.
This will show the speed at which data is downloaded and uploaded, as well as the latency expressed in ping.
The popular sites to check latency and ping are:
- Speedtest by Ookla
- Fast Speed Test
- PingTest
Taking the Ping & Latency Test
To get the best results in your test, you should do this with a device connected to the Internet with an Ethernet cable, so the latency would be the lowest possible for your connection.
Another recommendation is that you do this “ping test” with browsers like Chrome or Firefox.
It is also advisable to close all programs that can affect your download speed, especially P2P.
Various websites can be accessed if you want to take this exam, and your broadband provider can also give it to you.
If this is not the case, you can access various websites from your computer to check your link.
To perform the check, you can do the following:
- Visit any of the above-mentioned websites
- Click the Start Check button
- The page will start evaluating the latency of your connection
- First downloading (receiving data)
- Then uploading (sending data to the server)
Depending on the distance you connect to the server, the latency will go up or down, the difference would be milliseconds, but often it is milliseconds that matter.
With these checks, you can verify the variations by selecting the server they are connecting to. The closer, the smaller the sound.
What is a Good Ping Speed for Broadband?
So, we have discussed Ping and its importance. But what is the desired ping that is considered optimal for a broadband connection?
The most desirable speed is that the ping is less than 100 ms, and from 65 ms the connection is very acceptable.
If you get within these figures, you should have no trouble making a video call flowing or streaming your favourite videos.
What is a Good Ping for Gamers?
The ping speed that online gamers prefers is approximately 40ms – 60ms or lower than that.
A speed higher than 100ms for gaming cause serious delays. Any speed over 170 can stop your gaming experience.
For example, when you have a 10ms ping (0.01 seconds), the gameplay would appear quicker and smoother than 100ms.
It depends on what kind of game you watch. A game like Hearthstone does not need a low ping since it is a slower turn-based game.
A lot depends on the types of games that your play. Some games require lower ping like a slow paced turn wise game.
While high end games like Counterstrike requires high precision when it comes to inputs and timings.
Hence, a lower ping is a much need factor if you want to play these games.
How to Lower Ping?
Want to know how to lower ping to improve your gaming and Internet experience? Let us know the most effective methods to optimize ping:
1. Using Ethernet Cable
We have also seen some such good results in ping as connecting to the Internet via an Ethernet cable.
Hence, try using an ethernet cable and check the results.
2. Reduce the Number of Devices
Latency will decrease if you have one device connected to the network, and if there are two devices connected (including your mobile) and one is downloading information, the response speed will decrease.
It also affects the presence of other active applications on the same computer.
3. Whitelist your Games or Applications
Your firewall or antivirus can reduce the latency of data packets your favourite game or application receives.
To remove this obstruction, you need to whitelist your Games or Applications.
4. Close Background Programs
Background programs are the culprit when it comes to consuming your bandwidth which results in higher latency.
Background programs like windows update can seriously affect your connection speed.
Also, modern streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime or Spotify uses a lot of background data.
Hence, it is a better way to close these background programs when their use is not required.
5. Take a Fibre Connection
With the advancement of modern technology, the broadband connection has gone to new heights.
Today, normal DSL cable is taken over by Fibre cable. Taking a fibre connection can help you improve your ping.
Read Next: How to Get a Stronger WiFi Signal from My Neighbour?
Conclusion
Maybe you have never heard of these parameters or what is a good ping speed.
You may not understand why the speed of your Internet service did not change too much when you hired higher bandwidth.
But we believe after reading this article, you have already got the answer.
Test the latency of your connection to find out how hard you ‘re going so that you can better determine what kind of action you’re taking.
If it is not optimal, you can take the steps mentioned above.
Use the tips mentioned in this guide and there will be no video conference or no games from now on to resist you.
Finn Wheatley holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from UCL, London. He helped small data science consultancy firms, helping large corporations to grow their data capabilities, deploy advanced machine learning-based analytics and troubleshoot tech-related issues. Check out more about him here.