Any advice on acquiring the lowest possible latency?

[xcrabx]

Hi all! This is my first post to the forums, so please excuse any "posting errors" that I might have.

I am simply looking for advice on how to acquire the lowest ping/latency possible on my home Internet connection.

I live outside the major city in a large neighborhood, and I was told I am at the very end of the line (above ground cabling). I was also told the lines are fiber. We are only offered Mediacom (cable) or AT&T(DSL) and since I need high speeds, I am forced to choose Mediacom. I have had problems in the past with my ISP (just like most people) and I would prefer not to deal with them until I have to.

My speeds are decent, I'm roughly averaging around 25 down and 3 up. But, my ping sits anywhere between 59ms to 90ms. It's not terrible, but certainly not 10ms. I'm a casual gamer, so I would like to have zero lag when playing first person shooters. I was wondering if I can persuade Mediacom to look into lowering my latency or should I just suck it up? And if I can persuade them, what should I be asking for? And what are the details I should be concerned with?

I have an average of 3 devices connected to my wireless at all times. I have both my PC and PS4 hardwired to my wireless router. I have a roommate, so eliminating my wireless router is not an option. I have taken quite a few Cisco classes and I would like to eventually obtain my CCNA, so I have some knowledge of networks and how they operate. I am just unaware of how ISPs go about their business. Any insight would help! I love to learn!

 

[Alabalcho]

Your ISP cannot do much (if anything) to lower your ping time. If you are playing on the server located on the Moon, you are gonna lag unless you are also on the Moon.

 

[xcrabx]

Your ISP cannot do much (if anything) to lower your ping time. If you are playing on the server located on the Moon, you are gonna lag unless you are also on the Moon.

Thank you for the quick response! I understand where you're coming from, but let me ask you this... If I am on the moon and I ping the moon's server that is about 30 miles from me and my latency is around 60ms, wouldn't that suggest a problem in connectivity?
I phrased this question as such because I live about 30 miles from the nearest server where I tested my ping. Also, my mother who lives about 5 miles from me and has the same ISP, has a lower latency than I. She gets about 25 to 30ms on wireless.
I'm really just wondering if it is possible to get down to the 30ms range on my connection. Anything lower would be great, but 30ms latency on pinging a server that is less than 50 miles away seems to be a good average. But correct me if I am wrong, I am only after knowledge and experience!

 

[bill001g]

You largest issue is that the server may not be 50 miles away when you go through the internet. Lets say you use ISP 1 and your neighbor users ISP 2. They ISP have a agreement to pass data to each other so you can contact devices at your neighbor house. Problem is the ISPs can only afford to have so many of these crossing points in the world since there are far more than 2 ISP that they must cross data with. So if this cross point is very far away, even in a different country, your packets will have to go all the way there and then back to your neighbors house. Who know what the latency will be.

This is the same for any server unless it happens to be on the same ISP. It is almost impossible to figure stuff out.

In any case the only part you have any control over is the connection between your house and the ISP. If you run a tracert to the server the first hop is your router and should be only a couple ms. The second hop is the first ISP router and represents your connection to the ISP. Anything past this is in the ISP network and pretty much your only option is changing ISP if there are issues with the pathing in the networks.