Ping or latency are especially important in those situations where the immediacy with which we communicate with a server is crucial. For example, in the competitive video game sector.
Especially if we are connected wirelessly via WiFi, the quality of the connection can worsen considerably if we also have lag (high latency) , so we are going to see why it occurs and how to combat it.
High ping or latency
Latency is defined as the delay in response time of a signal . That is, the milliseconds that information packets are delayed between when they are sent and when they are received. Ping is the way to measure the latency of a connection through a command that is used to test the connection between two network nodes by sending packets to a remote server and returning a time measurement in ms or milliseconds to the user.
Speed and ping test
There will always be some delay in communications, especially wireless, because all remote communication implies a certain delay in the arrival of data, but if we talk about a few milliseconds, we should not worry.
The existence of high latency can worsen performance in online video games, because there is a delay from when we execute an action until it is recorded by the server, it can worsen the quality of streaming video playback, cause interference to appear in services of music like Spotify and other alternatives, etc.
The WiFi connection has a latency that is too high , especially if we compare it with the latency that we will get through an Ethernet cable. Let’s assume you can’t connect wired, because that would be the first step to improve the delay.
How to improve WiFi lag
Depending on the cause, we can choose one solution or another. If you are far away from the WiFi router or WiFi access point, it is best to move closer to it. When we are far away, the packet will take longer to get from our WiFi client to the router or access point.
WiFi channel saturation
When there are many devices simultaneously connected to a WiFi router, the wireless network will be more crowded. In this case, there may be a couple of solutions. Either activate Airtime Fairness, a solution so that slow clients do not harm faster clients, or install an additional access point to share the load of wireless clients, or a WiFi Mesh system.
When we have one or more wireless clients sending and receiving data, other wireless clients will suffer. We can configure the available bandwidth for each one and the bandwidth can be limited so that a device does not use what is necessary for the correct operation of others.
From the point of view of your computer or connected device, if you have several programs and applications running at the same time, it is very likely that the ping will increase. So that it does not affect you and you can have a connection without problems, close all the programs that you are not using, especially those that consume a large part of the bandwidth.
Wi-Fi wireless networks
Finally, it is convenient to look at the WiFi bands that we are using . The 2.4 GHz band has a greater range than the 5 GHz band. This can lead to the appearance of interference with neighboring networks, so we will have higher latency in the connection. If we use the 5 GHz band, which has less range, we will surely not have interference with neighboring networks.
In the event that you have interference, changing the WiFi channel will also improve the latency of the connection. You could analyze the WiFi spectrum around you to know if any specific channel is saturated and act accordingly.
