• uis@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      I just tested ping between my weak computers, one of which supports only 100mbit ethernet and are sequentially connected via cheap 2$ dumb switch and ISP-provided router and got 0.187ms average, while ping via same system, but using 802.11ac for one device got 8.16ms with standard deviation of 11.9, maximum of 67ms and minimum of 1.44ms.

    • quadropiss@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Right. Like even in the shittiest scenario that’s not a major difference. There’s stuff like interference and the speeds are lower, sure, but 1 gigabit is plenty for non enterprise situations

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Maybe…

      your latency on your network might be 0.6ms, but for most practical use-cases, it will be orders of magnitude more. Partly due to the interference and half duplex nature of wifi, but also because of CSMA/CA (carrier sense multi access / collision avoidance) algorithm, which listens before transmitting to ensure the channel is clear, and waits when it’s busy until it’s clear before transmitting. The actual transit time for each frame is very short, but getting to the point where you can actually transmit is the main challenge for wifi.

      Propegation time for a 1500 byte frame on gigabit Ethernet is approximately 12 µs, or 12 microseconds, aka 0.012 ms. So the argument is kind of squished here. Given that you have a dedicated channel to the switch (and not needing a carrier sense, collision avoidance of detection algorithm with ethernet) the frame can be immediately sent, so the total transit time from a computer connected by ethernet to a router or switch is orders of magnitude faster.