# Help with ping vs bandwidth



## tadpolefoder (Aug 28, 2006)

hey, im trying to get all this stuff straight in my head ---

-latency is the time from source to destination for intial connection (like travel time)

-bandwidth is the capacity of the connection

but one thing i dont get:
why does a closer server to me (im in new jersey), such as one in new york, almost always seem to get a much faster connection than one in lets say, china? after the inital connection, shouldnt the flow of data be the same? 

i was hoping someone could clear this up for me

thanks in advance,
jut


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## Motoxrdude (Aug 28, 2006)

The closer the server, the faster the connection. If the server is farther away, then the more wire the data has to go threw. You would only notice a difference once it gets about 1000 miles away though. You got the latency and bandwidth correct btw.


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## CyrexCore2k (Aug 28, 2006)

tadpole alot of people explain bandwidth and speed in terms of running water through a pipe. using this analogy you are correct, after the slight delay due to distance, the download speed should be the same regardless of the physical distance of the host. however the problem is that a connection between you and a source on the internet is actually a very leaky pipe. packets are lost, collisions occur and your computer must rerequest lost packets while recieving the data. the problem is compounded by the fact that these rerequest packets are lost as well and take a significant amount of time to reach the source.


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## bilbus (Aug 29, 2006)

If the server is nearer to you you pass though less networks. There is a better chance that the path is less busy, if you only have to pass though 2 networks then 12. If any network along the way has any speed issues, the whole path is slowed down. You are only as fast as the slowest link.

You can have a high latency network that has high bandwidth, and a low latency network that has low bandwidth. Latency does not neseraly mean that the data transfer will be slow.


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## tadpolefoder (Sep 2, 2006)

Thanks a lot for the replies --- it makes sense that there are other factors involved, and that helped to clear it up in my head.


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