Dial-up connection sending a ping

sfleuriet

if someone had dial-up and they sent out a ping, wouldn't the results be innacturate since their connection is slower to begin with?? It seems like it would go there slower and come back slower.

deicist

I think you're getting confused between latency and bandwidth. Bandwidth is how much data a connection can transfer at once, latency is how long it takes to get a specific piece of data (a packet) from point A to point B (and back again). So in the example of pinging from dial up, since the packet used for pinging isn't that big it can be transferred just as easily via dial up as via broadband. Since bandwidth isn't an issue that just leaves latency.

Just thought of a good analogy. Think of a train. Bandwidth is how many carriages are in the train, latency is how long the track is. With more carriages you can carry more people in one journey (more data), but you still have to contend with the length of the track (latency). Now with a ping, since you're not filling all the carriages anyway, even on our little train (dial up) the size of the train isn't an issue, the only thing affecting the ping time is how long the train track is (latency).

sfleuriet

ohh ok- yes I was confusing latency with bandwidth. Since the ping is such a small file it can go just as fast as broadband- -ok thanks!