General Question about ping times/latency + Distances

A

AMDXP

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Jul 9, 2004
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I always seem to ping 20 ms or lower to Chicago, IL. But, Illinois is not in my state. I live in Michigan. A state away or two, but in Michigan, I get higher ping times from the same host around 40 ms when testing to Detroit. I'm just curious how Chicago, IL offers such great latency when it's farther away than the servers in my state. Even in the gaming world. Is their network vastly superior or what? I'm on Comcast cable, if that matters. But, even on other providers it's still quite similar results.

:confused:

Sorry if my question leads to any reading comprehension confusion. I really didn't know how to word the question.
 
A traceroute will tell you lots. In a lot of cases even if you're physically close to a city the logical network may route the traffic far away before heading there. Chicago is a pretty big hub for the midwest so most traffic goes there before reaching it's final destination. It also depends on who Comcast peers with as well.
 
Geographically you're really not that far away from either server to see a real latency difference. Comcast might have a more direct route to the servers in Chicago then the ones in Detroit. Even though you're physically closer to the ones in Detroit doesn't mean the routes to reach them are as direct as you might think.

Since ~20ms is really a null difference almost anything could affect that little of a change; current network load, line quality, etc;.
 
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for all you know, you could be routed to new york and back!

I've gotten 15ms to Seattle from Seattle, but probably 70ms to Portland, Oregon which is ~180 miles from me

Just all in the routing
 
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