LATENCY, mostly TOTAL LATENCY

[StuartR]

I'm just getting started with Jamkazam and have terrible total latency, as observed by others. I've been thinking of switching ISPs to the same one as my neighbor down the block and was wondering if I could use ping to compare my network latency to his. To take that further, several cohorts are also new and troubleshooting latency issues, and i would like to compare pings with them as well.

So, my question is: Would it be a useful comparison if different computers all ping jamkazam.com and report their results back to me? Or, is there perhaps a different host at Jamkazam that would be more appropriate (considering that the machine answering to "jamkazam.com" might be strictly a webserver and relatively slow)?

I do realize that pings also include latency introduced by home routers, but I think the comparison would be interesting nonetheless.

(If there's another thread that answers this question, please, somebody, point me to it.)

Thanks,
Nate

Ok, first thing to know is that PING isn't the best tool to measure latency. Since it uses a dedicated protocol (ICMP) it doesn't correctly reflect the latency of IP-based packets. As an alternative, use something like the TESTMY.NET latency test. 

But I wouldn't even bother right now as the JK team is getting close to rolling out the second phase of their network acceleration service. This will be a game changer for some of us, depending on where we are located. Hang in there for a few more weeks to see what happens.