3 ms·
I’m an Australian. A lot of the internet I interact with is in America, and a lot of the rest is in Europe. These are all hundreds of milliseconds away by fibre
by chrismorgan 3y ago
I’m an Australian. A lot of the internet I interact with is in America, and a lot of the rest is in Europe. These are all hundreds of milliseconds away by fibreoptic cable, the latency of which is proportional to the speed of light.
I’ve been to America a few times. The internet is so fast there: not because of bandwidth differences, but because of latency, and especially sites carelessly loading chains of resources, which amplify the effects.
As soon as you deal in intercontinental stuff, you realise just how slow light is.
(As for studies in the effects of page load abandonment, those are never in the slightest bit relatable—at the time those studies suggest half the people are giving up, most sites still haven’t rendered anything at all, here.)
- citrin_ru 3y agoSpeed of light is the lower bound for network latency but actual internet latency also significantly affected by delays added by network equipment (routers/switches). Typically the bigger distance the more routers there are in between so this delay is also proportional to the distance. And sometimes there are almost saturated channels so there is a significant queuing delay for packets waiting to be sent. RTT AU <-> US will be higher than RTT for most pairs inside the US but RTT for the same distance within the US can vary more than 3x depending on exact network infrastructure on the way.
- Cold_Miserable 3y agoUsing fibre-optic cable where light travels in a zig-zag instead of using lasers increases latency too.