[SOLVED] Sudden jump in ping (0-30ms) Could switching ISPs help?

[Ludicrant]

So recently in the last month my ping has jumped from 0ms to 30ms, no matter what I'm pinging whether it's speedtest.net, google.com or a game I'm playing, and I was quite surprised that it jumped. At least since August 2020 to July 2021 (nearly a year) I averaged 0 ping with occasional 1 day mishaps every now and then. Before that I'm pretty sure I had 0 ping but it's too far back to remember. I thought it might have to do with the ISP-provided modem we've had for a few years but after moving houses today, the guy who helped set our internet up says that it's "noise in the area" contributing to ping. The answer sort of surprised me since I was averaging 0 ping in the height of the pandemic.

I was wondering if switching ISPs help lower ping or would nothing change?

Edit: 0 ping 0% packet loss on ethernet. With Optus.
Edit 2: 0 ping meaning less than 1 ping. I've had 0 ping (less than 1 ping) while playing video games for pretty much a year, I know the difference between 0 ping (less than 1ms) and 30ms for those who say "You never had 0 ping!" or "You didn't measure it correctly!" It's a massive difference. Definitely not for video gamers but 1ms to 30ms is a massive jump.

 

[SamirD]

First and foremost, there's no such thing as a 0 ping. Even a local lan has a ping >0. So however you're measuring that is wrong to begin with.

Secondly, physically moving locations will have a definite impact on ping times, so yes it can change.

 

[Ludicrant]

First and foremost, there's no such thing as a 0 ping. Even a local lan has a ping >0. So however you're measuring that is wrong to begin with.

Secondly, physically moving locations will have a definite impact on ping times, so yes it can change.

Firstly, I'm obviously well aware you can't achieve 0 ping, when I mentioned 0 ping I was referring to Speedtest.net displaying 0 ping, "cmd - ping google.com -t" displaying 0 ping and the live display of 0 ping when playing video games. When Speedtest.net, "cmd - ping google.com -t" and video games display 0 ping, they all refer to the ping being less than 1ms, and it comes up with the display of 0 ping.

Secondly, my question had nothing to do with location. The ping jump was pre-move, 1 month before it randomly jumped to 30ms, after I moved (which was today), I'm still getting 30ms, meaning it wasn't related to the physical move. My question was, as stated above, would an ISP switch help with ping? Or even a modem switch help with ping?

 

[Jason H.]

So recently in the last month my ping has jumped from 0ms to 30ms, no matter what I'm pinging whether it's speedtest.net, google.com or a game I'm playing, and I was quite surprised that it jumped. At least since August 2020 to July 2021 (nearly a year) I averaged 0 ping with occasional 1 day mishaps every now and then. Before that I'm pretty sure I had 0 ping but it's too far back to remember. I thought it might have to do with the ISP-provided modem we've had for a few years but after moving houses today, the guy who helped set our internet up says that it's "noise in the area" contributing to ping. The answer sort of surprised me since I was averaging 0 ping in the height of the pandemic.

I was wondering if switching ISPs help lower ping or would nothing change?

Edit: 0 ping 0% packet loss on ethernet. With Optus.

Who is your ISP? If it is Spectrum, dump them IMMEDIATELY and go with Windstream Kinetic internet. EVERY issue I had with my internet was from Spectrum. Soon as we switched to Windstream my ping went from 50ms on average in Rocket League, down to 18ms on average. Similar ping drop in all other games as well. No lag, internet never goes out (it did everyday with Spectrum through 10 service calls, rewiring, and new hardware).

Yes, switching ISP's can ABSOLUTELY change your ping, but most importantly, your overall experience.

However, you NEVER had 0ms ping. That is impossible. Even a local connection has a ping, as stated above. So however you got that 0ms reading, was wrong.

 

[SamirD]

If it is Spectrum, dump them IMMEDIATELY and go with Windstream Kinetic internet. EVERY issue I had with my internet was from Spectrum.

I have 4x isp accounts I work with, 2x are spectrum and they're actually the best of the bunch even though they are slower (100Mb vs 500+ on the others--wow and comcast).

 

[bill001g]

No matter what you think you do not have less than 1ms ping time to anything outside your house and I will assume you do not live inside the data hosting center and all your games and testing sites also reside there.

You would have to have some technology that allows your traffic to travel faster than the speed of light.

In addition fiber cuts the light speed by 30% and any form of cable reduces it by around 70%. Then you have addition delays for every device the traffic passes through.

30ms will have no effect on a game. Games use methods to predict location by the time the data is displayed. They need consistent ping times not so much any particular value. Multiplayer games are designed to not give someone with a low ping time a advantage. They artitifally add delays for people with faster connections to balance it out. They can only do so much so someone with a extra 100-200ms of ping time will have issues but they can fix your more common differences. Complaining about higher ping time is mostly a excuse by gamers who lose to want to place blame on something other than their own skills.