4 ms·

They can't 'fix' the speed of light. It won't drastically reduce latency of trying to live jam in a remote band or RTS game ping. I'm no network expert but I t

They can't 'fix' the speed of light. It won't drastically reduce latency of trying to live jam in a remote band or RTS game ping. I'm no network expert but I thought it was relatively solved and problems are due to underprovisioning. It's cool tech though. Like the 'wires' are providing back-pressure rather than the endpoint.

wtallis 2y ago
> I'm no network expert but I thought it was relatively solved and problems are due to underprovisioning. Protocols like TCP will ramp up to use all available bandwidth, ensuring there's congestion somewhere along the path. So you cannot simply blame everything on "underprovisioning". Bufferbloat is mostly solved in theory by AQMs like CoDel, but is still a problem in practice due to spotty deployment, especially for wireless links where congestion management is more complicated, and sometimes backbone links that are fast enough any congestion management needs to be implemented in hardware.
creshal 2y ago
I am rarely limited by the speed of light, even considering that it's much lower in fibre than in vacuum. On a good day I get pings twice as high in most online games; playing with friends on the other side of the Atlantic (which should be ~90ms for a round trip but often is 200) results in at least 10 additional frames worth of latency at 120Hz. Reducing the delay down to merely the speed of light would be a dramatic improvement! (I'd still lose, but at least I wouldn't be able to blame it on lag any more... maybe not an improvement after all, hm.)
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Even electric signals are plenty fast enough. The issue as always is all the processing like modulation and demodulation. And ofc routing. Fibre does help with this as you can do longer distance without doing it.
- PaulKeeble 2y ago
  Most of the time is still in the hops. Every machine along the route and transitions into fibre and electrical cables is what is adding the time. In theory we can do drastically better than we do today with faster routing machines but latency hasn’t really improved very much for long connections despite all the advancements in the past 30 years.
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> I thought it was relatively solved and problems are due to underprovisioning. You are right, ~universally so. However, the author is trying his middle-school best to convince us otherwise. While bandwidth upgrades (ex: d/u to broadband) have increased the amount of information transmitted, this change will actually make the internet feel faster for once. What made my home internet feel faster was going from cable to fiber. Because fiber is faster in capacity and latency. And my fiber is faster all the time, not just "for once".
lxgr 2y ago
Bufferbloat is a big problem in DOCSIS networks too.
NoPicklez 2y ago
Read the article "As Mitchell explains, it can’t bend the laws of physics to make data travel faster than the speed of light, but it can reduce the extra delays in the middle that have been slowing your connections down." Your latency issues aren't due to the speed of light
foxyv 2y ago
Most latency isn't caused by SOL restrictions. It's usually the repeaters, firewalls, routers, and packet queues that slow things down. It only takes 103ms for light to circumnavigate the globe. However, latencies at only half that distance are over 500ms due to router latency. Starlink is pretty good for communicating with the other side of the globe because of their routing over laser comms. I've known professional gamers that use it to reduce latencies to servers in Asia and the Middle East.

wtallis 2y ago

> I'm no network expert but I thought it was relatively solved and problems are due to underprovisioning. Protocols like TCP will ramp up to use all available bandwidth, ensuring there's congestion somewhere along the path. So you cannot simply blame everything on "underprovisioning". Bufferbloat is mostly solved in theory by AQMs like CoDel, but is still a problem in practice due to spotty deployment, especially for wireless links where congestion management is more complicated, and sometimes backbone links that are fast enough any congestion management needs to be implemented in hardware.

creshal 2y ago

I am rarely limited by the speed of light, even considering that it's much lower in fibre than in vacuum. On a good day I get pings twice as high in most online games; playing with friends on the other side of the Atlantic (which should be ~90ms for a round trip but often is 200) results in at least 10 additional frames worth of latency at 120Hz. Reducing the delay down to merely the speed of light would be a dramatic improvement! (I'd still lose, but at least I wouldn't be able to blame it on lag any more... maybe not an improvement after all, hm.)

Ekaros 2y ago
Even electric signals are plenty fast enough. The issue as always is all the processing like modulation and demodulation. And ofc routing. Fibre does help with this as you can do longer distance without doing it.
PaulKeeble 2y ago
Most of the time is still in the hops. Every machine along the route and transitions into fibre and electrical cables is what is adding the time. In theory we can do drastically better than we do today with faster routing machines but latency hasn’t really improved very much for long connections despite all the advancements in the past 30 years.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

> I thought it was relatively solved and problems are due to underprovisioning. You are right, ~universally so. However, the author is trying his middle-school best to convince us otherwise. While bandwidth upgrades (ex: d/u to broadband) have increased the amount of information transmitted, this change will actually make the internet feel faster for once. What made my home internet feel faster was going from cable to fiber. Because fiber is faster in capacity and latency. And my fiber is faster all the time, not just "for once".

lxgr 2y ago

Bufferbloat is a big problem in DOCSIS networks too.

NoPicklez 2y ago

Read the article "As Mitchell explains, it can’t bend the laws of physics to make data travel faster than the speed of light, but it can reduce the extra delays in the middle that have been slowing your connections down." Your latency issues aren't due to the speed of light

foxyv 2y ago

Most latency isn't caused by SOL restrictions. It's usually the repeaters, firewalls, routers, and packet queues that slow things down. It only takes 103ms for light to circumnavigate the globe. However, latencies at only half that distance are over 500ms due to router latency. Starlink is pretty good for communicating with the other side of the globe because of their routing over laser comms. I've known professional gamers that use it to reduce latencies to servers in Asia and the Middle East.