Low Latency – How Can Latency Be So Low from Singapore to USA (~2ms)?

latencyrtt

Here's the ping output from Singapore:

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=1.96 ms

Singapore to 8.8.8.8 = ~2ms

Another ping output:

64 bytes from 23.59.8.146: icmp_seq=81 ttl=44 time=66.1 ms

Singapore to 23.59.8.146 = ~66ms

Now my question is, even if both servers reside in the USA (found from https://ipinfo.io/), how come the first server's latency/RTT is surprisingly lower?

Best Answer

As others have pointed out, Google DNS uses IP anycast, which allows multiple servers in multiple locations to effectively share an IP address. Google (like many others) has many servers around the world that will respond to 8.8.8.8.

So when you ping that address, the server that responds is the one closest to you, perhaps one in your country.

Note that geo-location services, like ipinfo, use a variety of techniques, including registration information. All of it is an estimation.

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