Do You Lag?

Let’s use an analogy of a highway. Bandwidth is the number of lanes on the highway. So, an 16-lane highway has more capacity or can handle more traffic than a 2-lane highway. The higher the bandwidth (lanes), the more traffic can move from one location to another during a specific timeframe. Bandwidth is the most used value for internet speed but it really measures the volume of information that can be transferred over a connection in a set amount of time (i.e. 80 Mbps Download and 10 Mbps Upload speed). Latency is a measure of how fast the cars travel on the highway. It is usually measured in milliseconds (ms). The lower the Latency value, the better your speed. It is a measure of how fast a packet of information goes between your location to a specific server.

Jitter measures stability or the VARIATION, over time, of Latency. Data packets are sent in a continuous steady stream and are spaced evenly apart. But unforeseen issues like network congestion may alter this steady stream, or the delay between each packet can fluctuate instead of remaining constant. Kind of like rush hour traffic in Los Angeles. You may have experienced these problems on a VOIP or video conference if you lose a connection for a second or more. You want a stable connection or low Jitter.

Ping, which has its roots in active sonar (think submarine movies), is the signal transmitted across the network to another computer. This other computer then sends its own signal back, which is another ping. The signal is the ping. Think of Ping as a car. And the measurement of the car’s round trip is Latency.