Tell me more ×
Server Fault is a question and answer site for professional system and network administrators. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 2 down vote favorite

The question is above. Any link/idea is well appreciated. My best regards...

share|improve this question
For something like the cable over the Atlantic ocean, yes it might affect the time. For your office? Not so much, here the equipment between you and the host you ping will add more than the actual cabling. – Joachim Pileborg Jan 20 '12 at 12:18

migrated from stackoverflow.com Jan 22 '12 at 1:02

2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

Yes, it does - theoretically

The ping time is the sum of

  • the processing and send time on the initiating side,
  • the signal transport time on the cable,
  • the receive time,
  • processing time
  • and send time on the replying side,
  • the signal transport time on the cable
  • the receive and processing time on the initiating side.

In modern copper wire the signal speed is about 85% of the speed of the light in vacuum, so you get something like 26cm per ns. If you compare the shortest possible cable to the longest possible cable in the CAT5/CAT6 ethernet domain you will find the difference is ca. 400ns - which is typically much less than any of the other time slices.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

You are talking about a CAT5 cable? There is however a maximum allowed length of a CAT5 cable, about 100 meters if I recall rightly.

But since signals propagate in about a billionth of a second per meter, no it would not make any measurable difference to you, I'd imagine.

I think that if it made any difference, it would be due to heavy interference of some kind causing packet loss by introducing noise into the signal, and that being exacerbated by the length. But that's something you'd solve with more shielding.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.