How to Reduce Latency and Ping times with Speedify
A Slashdot User Asks…
In October, one Slashdot user submitted an ‘Ask Slashdot’ post, wondering how to use a VPN, “so that the same TCP and UDP traffic goes over both links, and the fastest packet on either link ‘wins’ and the other is discarded?” At the time, there was no good solution. Thanks to Speedify’s new “Redundant Mode”, this is now possible. By sending traffic over every link, Speedify really can drop average latency significantly. Your opponents in Battlefield won’t stand a chance!
A New Feature is Born
Redundant Mode has been available to all users running the latest version of Speedify for just over a week now, and already folks have been writing to tell us how awesome the new feature is.
But, I wanted to dig a little deeper and see what’s happening under-the-hood. The obvious question is whether or not such a system can really help improve ping times. If pings are essentially measures of the speed of light, then you might expect little difference in performance from sending duplicate packets in parallel.
The Control (without Speedify)
Let’s look at some real ping times from a pair of 4G wireless cards in our office, first without Speedify at all.
Verizon 4G MiFi
Ping statistics for 74.125.29.147:
Packets: Sent = 47, Received = 47, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 56ms, Maximum = 411ms, Average = 120ms
Clear 4G USB modem
Ping statistics for 74.125.29.105:
Packets: Sent = 45, Received = 45, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 68ms, Maximum = 388ms, Average = 125ms
While there is a clear minimum ping time, there isn’t really a limit on the maximum ping time. 4G cards have ping times around 50 ms when everything works well, but sometimes they randomly delay packets by hundreds of milliseconds!
Now, with Speedify in Redundant Mode
To improve on this, I connect to Speedify, select Redundant Mode, and run the pings again. In Redundant Mode, each ping is sent on both connections, and whichever one gets through first is the one delivered. Here’s what I get:
Clear 4G + MiFi 4G through Speedify Redundant Mode:
Ping statistics for 74.125.29.103:
Packets: Sent = 41, Received = 41, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 52ms, Maximum = 106ms, Average = 69ms
The average ping times of 125 ms and 120 ms by themselves, gets cut down to just 69 ms, almost twice as good. That’s a 40% improvement with Speedify in Redundant Mode.
In this case, Speedify’s Redundant Mode delivers because 4G networks suffer from jitter (variable latency). There are other scenarios where Speedify helps, too: packet loss, and of course, networks losing connectivity altogether.
So next time you’re gearing up Battlefield, or maybe trading stocks on the Internet, try taking Speedify for a spin.
Download Speedify
Speedify is the only app that combines your wifi, cellular, wired, and even your friend’s phone signals – into one ultra-fast and super secure link that keeps you all connected for the best possible live streaming, video calling, or just posting to your favorite app.
Subscribe to Speedify on YouTube
Get news, success stories, and our weekly livestreaming show Speedify LIVE! Tune in to chat and ask questions or to yell at us if that makes you happy. We're from Philly, we can take it.
