Latency vs. bandwidth vs. throughput

Having a home router can be a lot of fun. All your devices can be connected to the internet through one router. You also get the chance to operate a private network consisting of your printers, external hard disks, and game consoles. However, it can be frustrating trying to play online games only for you to experience some form of lag. Latency, bandwidth and throughput all work together to influence your internet experience.

Latency is the time it takes for a packet of data to move from the source to the destination and back. The unit of measure is milliseconds. Throughput is the actual amount of messages that are successfully delivered over your network. The unit of measure is Kbps, Mbps or Gbps. Bandwidth defined as how much data can be carried over a network. Its unit of measurement is kbps, Mbps or Gbps.

Think of your network as this pipe. The width of the pipe is what we call bandwidth while the time it takes for water to go from one destination to another is latency. Throughput is how much water is successful transmitted over the pipe.

Why do bandwidth, throughput, and latency matter?

For most people who are only interested in an internet connection for regular surfing of websites and responding to emails, latency and throughput may seem not to matter that much. However, if you are planning on engaging in live video streams, VOIP or play multiplayer shooter games then you need to take a closer look at latency and throughput.

Most of the internet speeds advertised by ISPs are actually not the actual speeds that you get with your router. There is often a slight difference. To know you actual latency and throughput rates you will need to perform a speed test.

A speed test will uncover your upload/download speeds and ping. If you are into internet games then you will need to perform a speed test on both your Wi-Fi connection and the wired Ethernet connection. You may also need to perform the speed test at different hours of the day. You may notice that your internet connection is better/worse during the night/day.

For latency, anything below 100ms is considered as good/average rate. However, for those planning on playing high intensive multiplayer games then go for rates of less than 50ms. 20ms is considered an exceptional rate for gaming. Instead of choosing a wireless connection go for a wired connection and you may see your internet speeds been 80% within what was advertised.

Internet Service providers tend to offer their bandwidths as part of selected packages. Upgrading your package from let’s say 50Mbps to 100Mbps can improve your latency rates tremendously. While at it, you may also want to change your mode of connection from satellite to cable,fiber,or DSL for gaming purposes.

At times, after doing all this, you may still notice that your internet connection is still slow. This may necessitate you to check your hardware and do upgrades if necessary. Certain games require some minimum hardware specifications that if not fulfilled will result in higher latency levels. If you want to reduce lag boost your computer RAM levels, upgrade graphics card and keep your router firmware up to date. The latest firmware has the advantage of keeping your router protected from malware.

Bandwidth packages

Before you go with a certain bandwidth package, note that how cable companies offer them is a bit different. There those who offer symmetrical data transfers – meaning you get the same upload and download speeds while others offer asymmetrical data transfers. In the latter, the download rates is higher than the upload rate. This method is necessitated by consumer needs where they desire to download more content than they need to upload.

Some providers will provide bandwidth on demand, others it is shared or it is dedicated for certain times. Whatever the service ensure you are getting that meets your internet needs. If you are choosing a bandwidth for your organization ensure you are able to get an estimate of all your organization data needs. You should also look for providers that offer VPN services and encryption applications. This will come in handy if your organization does a lot of storage on cloud.

Summary of internet connection terminologies used

How to reduce your latency

If you are going to be using your router mostly for gaming then latency is a big hindrance to effective gameplay. The first thing you will need to do is replace your wireless connection for gaming and instead go for wired connections (Ethernet cable). Constant rebooting of your router whenever you experience some lag may help restore it to factory settings. To do this effectively, unplug your router and wait for around 30 minutes before restarting it.

The factors that affect latency vary widely. Sometimes what is limiting your internet connection is having so many bandwidth intensive applications open at the same time. This is the case when you are using more than the allocated maximum bandwidth. Shutting some of these programs can lead to a significant improvement in latency. The same applies to disabling your firewalls during intensive gaming. Firewalls are there to protect your machine from malware attacks but when the firewalls are corrupted then their effectiveness reduces. It is also recommended to use one firewall for all your programs rather than having multiple ones.

Conclusion

High latency can be problematic when you are trying to access the internet but there is significant lag. This means anytime you send a command you have to wait for a few seconds before the commands are activated on your machine. Having more bandwidth may not necessarily reduce latency. However, implementing some measures like using a wired connection, closing bandwidth intensive programs and preference for fiber, DSL and cable instead of satellite can reduce your latency numbers.

FAQ

Is throughput the same as bandwidth?

Bandwidth is how much data a network can carry and throughput is how many data messages are successfully delivered

What is more important – latency or bandwidth?

Both play different roles but latency is more noticeable as it measures delay. High bandwidth means higher download speeds