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Picking a distant ISP that has no local facilities will not decrease the speed you get from your DSL line, but will increase the latency (the time taken to traverse the link to a given internet site).

Latency typically matters for gamers, for programmers using telnet sessions, and possibly for applications like voice over IP (internet phone) applications. It is possible that an east coast user that has ordered DSL from a west coast ISP may find ping times to an internet site in their own city could be up to 100ms more than a neighbor who picked a local ISP or one with local facilities. 1/10th of a second is not much, but is certainly a drawback for advanced interactive gaming.


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by KeysCapt See Profile
last modified: 2002-07-23 18:48:18



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