US Telco Support > AT&T > AT&T West > [Home Network] latency / lag on DSL vs. cable

[Home Network] latency / lag on DSL vs. cable

It is all over the map for both. On average, cable is probably lower. But DSL on Fast data path can be lower than some cable systems I have seen.

Lowest cable latency to the first hop (past the CPE) I have seen is often 9-10ms.

I have seen a trace route, or two, for DSL users just as low; but typical first hop latency is 12-13ms for Fast data path. Being on the Interleaved data path on DSL can add 30ms to latency.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

reply to Authority

reply to Authority
I don't think I've ever seen a Comcast (the only cable company in the Bay Area) line that had latency as low as a decent DSL line. It's usually not even close, like 9-10ms vs well over 20ms.

It takes away from the data speed (ATM+PPPoE overhead is roughly 15%), but not latency. The data path affects latency; being on the Fast data path is ideal. Interleaved will add to latency.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

reply to Authority
Used to be dsl hands down. Rogers still sucked at last check, but Roadrunner's first hop latency is way down from what it used to be. It now ties or beats Verizon and Bell Sympatico at close distance. Seems they have upgraded certain things. However, that is cancelled out by currently crappy routing over tbone.rr.com. I would still go with dsl if you're close to the CO. Latency and loss increase with distance, but a close range dsl connection is hard to beat. You need to consider cable relies on an RTS(request to send) signal from the modem to what essentially amounts to hub-based topology. Only 1 modem may send an RTS and begin sending in a single cycle, This may make retransmissions high at peak time on apps like online games, which transmit at a constant slow speed and are ping dependent. Even though your network latency might be ok, cable may lag during these times, usually in very short bursts. DSL typically won't suffer from this.

Depending on what you do, this all may be negligible. You might just want to check for best price or best reputation for provider, if that's the case. Packet shaping, etc may have more effect on your overall experience(depending which apps you use) than a few ms of ping time will,

reply to Authority
i guess my latency is pretty good to the internet backbone im on cable

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 10.95.64.1
3 11 ms 9 ms 9 ms 71-80-70-62.dhcp.kgpt.tn.charter.com [71.80.70.6
2]
4 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms 24-159-64-49.static.jcsn.tn.charter.com [24.159.
64.49]
5 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 64.200.71.13
6 23 ms 23 ms 21 ms 64.200.240.238
7 22 ms 23 ms 21 ms brvwil1wcx3-pos9-1-oc48.wcg.net [64.200.249.37]

8 22 ms 23 ms 23 ms 64.200.249.190
9 22 ms 24 ms 22 ms te-4-3-70.car2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.110.33]

10 23 ms 23 ms 39 ms 4.79.66.30
11 24 ms 24 ms 25 ms 72.14.232.57
12 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms 72.14.232.53
13 38 ms 24 ms 23 ms py-in-f147.google.com [64.233.167.147]

Or, you can be on fiber and be even better!!!

1 (192.168.1.1) 0.603 ms 0.181 ms 0.176 ms
2 l100.vfttp-21.phlapa.verizon-gni.net (72.78.x.x) 5.521 ms 4.911 ms 4.950 ms
3 p6-0.lcr-04.phlapa.verizon-gni.net (130.81.96.38) 4.993 ms 4.706 ms 5.084 ms
4 130.81.29.214 (130.81.29.214) 4.896 ms 3.882 ms 5.015 ms
5 0.so-6-0-0.xl2.phl6.alter.net (152.63.3.81) 4.948 ms 4.710 ms 4.993 ms
6 0.so-6-0-0.xl4.iad8.alter.net (152.63.0.130) 10.010 ms 9.627 ms 10.024 ms
7 0.ge-7-0-0.br2.iad8.alter.net (152.63.41.157) 9.937 ms 9.709 ms 9.963 ms
8 4.68.63.165 (4.68.63.165) 10.002 ms 8.757 ms 9.851 ms
9 ae-2-79.edge1.washington1.level3.net (4.68.17.80) 12.589 ms
10 ae-1-69.edge1.washington1.level3.net (4.68.17.16) 9.292 ms
11 ae-3-89.edge1.washington1.level3.net (4.68.17.144) 12.110 ms
12 google-inc.edge1.washington1.level3.net (4.79.231.6) 12.271 ms
13 64.233.175.171 (64.233.175.171) 12.548 ms
14 64.233.175.169 (64.233.175.169) 11.273 ms 11.368 ms
15 72.14.232.25 (72.14.232.25) 14.951 ms
16 72.14.232.21 (72.14.232.21) 13.915 ms 11.193 ms
17 yo-in-f103.google.com (64.233.169.103) 11.088 ms 12.250 ms 12.513 ms
--
"ONE team - ONE city - ONE dream!!"

reply to Authority
ask any MMORPG player,
DSL lag beats Cable

reply to Selenia

12/31/07 12:10:31 Slow traceroute www.yahoo.com
Trace www.yahoo.com (209.131.36.158) ...
192.168.102.1   RTT:   1ms TTL:170 (chihiro.aosake.net ok)
192.168.0.1     RTT:   2ms TTL:170 (suzuka.aosake.net ok)
69.110.151.254  RTT:  11ms TTL:170 (adsl-69-110-151-254.dsl.pltn13.pacbell.net ok)
64.164.107.1    RTT:  11ms TTL:170 (No rDNS)
151.164.93.231  RTT:  11ms TTL:170 (bb1-g15-0.pltnca.sbcglobal.net ok)
151.164.191.201 RTT:  11ms TTL:170 (ex1-p9-0.eqsjca.sbcglobal.net ok)
151.164.248.58  RTT:  12ms TTL:170 (asn10310-yahoo-10g.eqsjca.sbcglobal.net ok)
216.115.107.83  RTT:  12ms TTL:170 (g-0-0-0-p171.msr2.sp1.yahoo.com ok)
209.131.32.17   RTT:  12ms TTL:170 (te-8-1.bas-a1.sp1.yahoo.com ok)
209.131.36.158  RTT:  12ms TTL: 55 (f1.www.vip.sp1.yahoo.com ok)
 

Upstream sync rate on DSL results in marginally lower RTT pings to the POP. I think going from 384k upstream to 608k upstream, I saw a drop in GW ping from about 11-12ms to 7-8ms. Not a huge difference, that, but of note.

Also, in my experience, DSL pings are much more consistent and stable. Cable tends to fluctuate quite a bit, at least it has in areas I've had Cable. This, as I said, can definitely vary by Comcast market.

Here's the ping to my gateway on my parents' Comcast connection (which is actually very good):

This is what I see...

Ping statistics for 69.110.151.254:
    Packets: Sent = 20, Received = 20, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 11ms
 

Some of that is due to location (i.e. San Jose to San Jose trace to yahoo.com)

L.A. to San Jose is a little farther

$ tracert www.yahoo.com
 
Tracing route to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net [209.131.36.158]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.254.11 
  2    10 ms    10 ms     9 ms  netblock-68-183-52-1.dslextreme.com [68.183.52.1] 
  3    10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  LAX1.CR1.Gig6-0.dslextreme.com [66.51.199.133] 
  4    20 ms    20 ms    20 ms  netblock-66-51-198-182.dslextreme.com [66.51.198.182] 
  5    20 ms    20 ms    21 ms  PAT2.SJC.yahoo.com [206.223.116.16] 
  6    21 ms    20 ms    22 ms  g-1-0-0-p161.msr1.sp1.yahoo.com [216.115.107.63] 
  7    25 ms    22 ms    22 ms  te-8-1.bas-a2.sp1.yahoo.com [209.131.32.19] 
  8    22 ms    21 ms    21 ms  f1.www.vip.sp1.yahoo.com [209.131.36.158] 
 
Trace complete.
 

Yeah, but how far are you from your DSLAM? It is the latency to the gateway router which is what I am looking at. My DSLAM is 9,156 out. I'd be curious to see the latency on a DSL line at 15,000 feet; especially if they were on the Fast data path.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

reply to Packeteers

said by Packeteers:

ask any MMORPG player,
DSL lag beats Cable

reply to NormanS