Imagine you are so close to winning an online game tournament, only to have your PC screen freeze for a few moments suddenly costing you that win. Or maybe you are on a video call with your friends or colleagues when suddenly their faces become like a zombie as their videos turn into blurry pixels. This is what you can do for internet latency. It can come up any time of the day and ruin an important moment for you. Now. you might wonder, exactly what is internet latency? And how to fix latency? Well worry not! We will dig deep into this topic clearing all your doubts and questions.
To make things simple, imagine you are throwing a ball to your friend who is standing a few feet away from you. The time it took for the ball to leave your hand as you threw it and for the friend to catch it can be akin to the latency you face online. What is internet latency? It basically is the delay between the action of the user and the response from the online website or application. You can think of it as the digital version of the ball you threw to your friend.
In the tech world, latency is measured in milliseconds. You may wonder what does a few milliseconds have to do with the lag? But these few milliseconds are all that it takes to ruin your online experience! Generally speaking, a latency of under 100ms is considered good, while a latency of over 200ms is what starts to cause issues of lagging and stuttering online. Next time your game gets a jitter or your video gets stuck on buffering insite of your high speed internet, you know the culprit!
The first thing that comes to mind is what is internet latency doing to you when it’s higher? It mainly slows everything down making your fast internet connection feel like it’s stuck in the mud somewhere! There are several factors that contribute to high latency which we have mentioned below.
The more distance your data has to travel, the higher the rate of latency there will be. So if you live in a country where they have underwater cables installed in the ocean for the internet services, it will definitely take its time to work.
This is just like the everyday rush of vehicles you witness on the roads.When too many users are trying to access the same data or resource, it can cause an overall delay.
It might be that your data is being rerouted to several other servers before reaching you. Hence it can also cause a higher latency rate.
If you have an outdated router being used, that might also be a cause for high latency.
The Internet Service Providers intentionally slow down the traffic of certain types. This can happen sometimes for variable reasons, but it can cause an increase in your internet latency.
Many people confuse the term bandwidth with latency. They both are quite different from each other. Bandwidth on one hand is the amount of data that can be transferred at any given time over the internet. Latency on the other hand is the time it takes for that data to travel from one place to another. Still confused? Think of the bandwidth as the highway and the latency as the speed limit. You can have a wide open highway with plenty of space to move the data but if there is a speed limit restricted (latency), then your data is still going to take its time to reach wherever it’s sent towards.
Let’s get to the main reason you are here. How to fix latency? The good thing is that there are several ways to reduce your latency without getting to technical.
More distance between your device and router will result in increased latency as the signals have to travel greater distances. Moving closer to the router can help cut off some milliseconds of latency.
New routers are much better at handling high speed data while reducing the latency levels. If you have an old-school router, it might be time for an update!
Sometimes wireless is not always the answer. By using a wired internet connection via an ethernet cable, you will definitely get higher speeds and reduced latency as there isn’t any interference in the signals like in a wireless setup.
If you are multitasking and running many applications in the background, that will definitely cause higher latency rates. Therefore close tabs that are not in your use to make your online experience more efficient.
Keep a regular check on your system for any possibility of virus or malware. They are also a major cause of high latency.
If all the above mentioned steps fail, simply call your ISP for help and they will definitely look into it and guide you on how to fix latency or send a professional at your place to fix it.
Do you know that SIngapore is the country with the lowest latency rates across the world? While an average satellite based internet has a latency rate of 600 ms due to its long data travel distance! Talk about winning an online gaming event with a satellite connection. Now that’s a real painful challenge!
In summary, what is internet latency? It’s the delay you face during your online session ranging from gaming all the way to video calls and video buffering etc. In the digital world, these milliseconds do matter a lot as you can understand from this article. So, the next time you are faced with high latency, be sure to follow our guide and you will be back to winning your online tournaments in no time! Happy surfing folks!
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