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VPNs for ad-blocking For many Australians, latency isn’t that you think about every day. It’s not something that directly affects your ability o stream video content on Netflix, listen to music on Spotify, or surf Instagram and the web. However, if you regularly play games online or have a satellite NBN internet plan, latency can have a big impact on your overall experience with the internet. Imagine you’re watching the news, and the host cuts away to a reporter on the scene of an epic ice cream truck meltdown (500 waffle cones were lost, but no one was injured). The anchor says “Over to you, Jerry,” but the reporter stands there, smiling blankly at the camera. An uncomfortable amount of time passes before they finally blurt out the words: “Thanks, Ben.” On a technical level, this delay between an in-studio news anchor and a reporter is the same kind of latency that many Australians regularly experience. It’s less about the speed of your connection and more to do with how fast your connection feels. Ideally, your latency would be zero milliseconds. However, the chances of this happening are lower than chances of finding a secret alien base on the dark side of the moon. Luckily, there are a few ways to lower your latency. When it comes to cutting down your ping and speeding your internet connection up, it’s best to start by figuring out what might be adding latency in the first place. Some of these factors are fixable, while others are just part of everyone’s online experience. If you’re wondering why your latency is so high, here are some likely culprits. For example, if you live in Melbourne, and you visit a website hosted by a server located in Sydney, the response time of the website should be pretty quick. That’s because your request has to travel a relatively short distance. But if you live in Perth, and try to access that same website hosted by a Sydney-based server, the response time will be slower. This is because your request has to travel a greater distance. Your request → the server’s response → your computer Your data packet → the server This brings us to propagation delay: this is how long it takes for your data packets to reach that. (But it doesn’t include the time it takes to cross the full distance back to your computer. That’s round-trip time.) Like distance, propagation delay is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to how much latency you experience. If a website is home to lots of large files, like HD images or videos, or multiple third-party ads (the horror), your web browser has to download all of those files and ads to show them to you. And if those files or ads are hosted on a server that’s far away from you, there’s going to be a little latency thanks to distance. Wi-Fi also has to jump through a few more hoops, like encryption protocols, to travel back and forth from your computer. And usually, those wireless signals fade, or lose strength, over distance faster than an Ethernet connection. Each quarter, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission releases in-depth data on how each NBN provider compares when it comes to download speeds, upload speeds, outages, and latency. Check out the table below to see how each of Australia’s NBN providers ranked lowest when it came to latency (just don’t forget that lower latency is better). Upgrading to a new router may decrease your latency, but, unfortunately, it likely won’t have too huge of an impact. For example, you can tell your router to prioritize your desktop computer over your kiddo’s tablet. This means that your computer gets the best possible online performance, possibly at the cost of your child’s tablet getting a slower internet connection. (Shh, we won’t tell.) Bandwidth measures how much data your internet connection can download or upload at a time. Sometimes bandwidth gets confused with download speed, but internet speed and bandwidth aren’t exactly the same. You can think of bandwidth like a straw. Let’s say you order up a tasty chocolate shake from McDonald’s, but the server gave you a regular straw by mistake. The regular straw is like low bandwidth. You can’t slurp up much chocolate shake through that small straw, just like you can’t download a lot of data with low bandwidth. For example, an NBN50 plan offers download speeds of up to 50Mbps while an NBN100 plan gets you double that. If you’re looking to choose between the two, signing up for the faster of the two means getting more bandwidth (in turn which means lower latency). Check out the widget below for a round-up of NBN100 plans. Even at 100 ms, you can play most online games without much frustration. However, that’s not a universal rule. Many online games demand or benefit from a faster connection. Low latency is especially critical if you’re playing a first-person shooter (FPS) game like Call of Duty or any other games where timing is critical (like League of Legends or Need for Speed). If you’re looking to stream games via the cloud, then latency becomes even more important. If a low-latency internet connection is important to you, you might want to consider the gamer-specific NBN add-ons that Telstra and Optus have launched in recent years. Both the the Optus Game Path and Telstra Game Optimiser cost an additional $10 per month on top of your existing NBN plan, and promise to reduce latency by locking in the shortest possible route between your connection and the server your game requires. You can check out the widget below for a round-up of NBN plans from Optus and Telstra. If that sounds like it might suit your needs, check out the widget below for a round-up of the provider’s NBN plans.
Turn off any downloads, and be sure to check for anything that’s downloading in the background. Close any unused applications or browser tabs. Check for malware. We once had a bug on our computer that was using up most of our bandwidth. Not fun! Use an Ethernet cable to connect your device to your router or modem, if at all possible. If you can’t use an Ethernet cable, you may want to invest in a mesh Wi-Fi system, like the Google Nest Wi-Fi. Update your router’s and modem’s firmware—outdated firmware can even cause slow internet speeds. Turn on your router’s QoS feature and set it to prioritize your device or activity.
P.S. If you’re stuck with satellite internet, high latency is sadly a fact of life. But there are some things you can do to speed up your satellite connection. Zoom recommends a latency of 150 ms and jitter of 40 ms or less. Anything past that will likely make your video conference extremely choppy and unbearable. Rubber-banding is where your in-game character runs toward a location, then seems to jump backward a few seconds later, almost as if they’re stuck to a giant rubber band that snapped back. Stuttering is similar to rubber-banding, but instead of snapping back to a position they were in several seconds ago, your character will freeze in place and skip ahead to the location you were aiming for. It almost looks like you’re teleporting a few steps every few seconds.
title: “What Is Latency And How Do You Fix It " ShowToc: true date: “2023-02-21” author: “Charles Hollie”
You know how you’ll be watching the news, and the host will cut away to a reporter on the scene of an epic ice cream truck meltdown (500 waffle cones lost, but no one was injured)? The anchor will say, “Over to you, Jerry,” but the reporter will stand there, smiling blankly at the camera for an uncomfortable amount of time before finally blurting, “Thanks, Ben.” In other words, latency affects how responsive your internet connection, video, or game feels. Ideally, your latency would be zero milliseconds—but chances of this happening are lower than chances that we find a secret alien base on the dark side of the moon. Luckily, there are a few ways to lower your latency that we’ll go over in a minute. (Or you can skip ahead.) You can also test your own internet latency at home. Some of these factors are fixable, while others are just part of everyone’s online experience. So if you’re wondering why your latency is so high, here are some likely culprits. For example, if you live in Madison, Wisconsin, and you visit a website hosted by a server located in Chicago, Illinois, the response time of the website should be pretty quick. That’s because your request has to travel a relatively short distance of 147 miles and back. But if you live in Miami, Florida, and try to access that same website hosted by a server in Chicago, the response time will be slower. This is because your request has to travel 1,381 miles to the Chicago server and back to you in Miami. Your request → the server’s response → your computer Your data packet → the server This brings us to propagation delay: this is how long it takes for your data packets to reach that. (But it doesn’t include the time it takes to cross the full distance back to your computer—that’s round-trip time.) Propagation delay is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to how much latency you experience. If a website is home to lots of large files, like HD images or videos, or multiple third-party ads (the horror), your web browser has to download all of those files and ads to show them to you. And if those files or ads are hosted on a server that’s far away from you, there’s going to be a little latency thanks to distance. Wi-Fi also has to jump through a few more hoops, like encryption protocols, to travel back and forth from your computer. And usually, those wireless signals fade, or lose strength, over distance faster than an Ethernet connection. Upgrading to a new router may decrease your latency, but, unfortunately, it likely won’t have too huge of an impact. For example, you can tell your router to prioritize your desktop computer over your kiddo’s tablet. This means that your computer gets the best possible online performance, possibly at the cost of your child’s tablet getting a slower internet connection. (Shh, we won’t tell.) Bandwidth measures how much data your internet connection can download or upload at a time. Sometimes bandwidth gets confused with download speed, but internet speed and bandwidth aren’t exactly the same. You can think of bandwidth like a straw. Let’s say you order up a tasty chocolate shake from McDonald’s, but the server gave you a regular straw by mistake. The regular straw is like low bandwidth. You can’t slurp up much chocolate shake through that small straw, just like you can’t download a lot of data with low bandwidth. And, on the other hand, high latency can also create a bottleneck that reduces your effective bandwidth—at least until those delayed data packets get through. Low latency is especially critical if you’re playing a first-person shooter (FPS) game like Call of Duty or any other games where timing is critical (like League of Legends or Need for Speed). Rubber-banding is where your in-game character runs toward a location, then seems to jump backward a few seconds later, almost as if they’re stuck to a giant rubber band that snapped back. Stuttering is similar to rubber-banding, but instead of snapping back to a position they were in several seconds ago, your character will freeze in place and skip ahead to the location you were aiming for. It almost looks like you’re teleporting a few steps every few seconds.
Turn off any downloads, and be sure to check for anything that’s downloading in the background. Close any unused applications or browser tabs. Check for malware. We once had a bug on our computer that was using up most of our bandwidth. Not fun! Use an Ethernet cable to connect your device to your router or modem, if at all possible. If you can’t use an Ethernet cable, you may want to invest in a mesh Wi-Fi system, like the Google Nest Wi-Fi. Update your router’s and modem’s firmware—outdated firmware can even cause slow internet speeds. Turn on your router’s QoS feature and set it to prioritize your device or activity.
P.S. If you’re stuck with satellite internet, high latency is sadly a fact of life. But there are some things you can do to speed up your satellite connection. This opens a new mini window that shows your minimum and maximum RTT, or latency. You’ll also see your jitter, which is the delay in time between data packets getting sent through your network. Zoom recommends a latency of 150 ms and jitter of 40 ms or less.5 Anything past that will likely make your video conference extremely choppy and unbearable.
