When we have an Internet connection, we usually only look at the download and upload speed, however, we rarely pay attention to one of the most important aspects of Internet connections: latency. If our Internet connection uses ADSL we will have higher latency than a network that uses fiber optics, the same happens if our router is saturated with traffic, latency increases, and jitter (latency variation) could even increase, so the user experience could be very bad. Today in this article we are going to show you different programs to see the latency of our connection in Windows operating systems.
What is latency and why should it be as low as possible?
Connection latency is the time it takes to send a packet from a source to a destination, the lower the connection latency, the faster we can start data transfer. Normally the latency in the Internet and local networks is measured in milliseconds, in fact, the closer we are to 1ms and even less, the better, because it will mean that we have a really excellent latency. When we have a high latency in our Internet connection, we will notice it by the following aspects:
- The data takes a long time to send, for example, a WhatsApp message takes too long to “go out” and show us the sent tick, and it will even take a long time to show us the received tick.
- Access to the different web pages is very slow, either with HTTP or HTTPS, that is, Internet browsing is very slow, or they are not able to load completely.
- If we try to play online, we will have continuous connectivity problems and it will give us an error when playing.
- IP cameras, sensors and other Internet of Things devices take a long time to respond to our requests.
As we increase the number of devices, if we do not have a good WiFi router, the latency could increase too much and have problems, for this reason it is so important to have a good WiFi router in our home, to keep the latency as low as possible. .
To improve the latency of our Internet connection, and of the connection to the local network, the first thing we must know is how to check the latency of our connection, and later see different aspects of the network installation. Once we have seen what latency is and how we can notice that we have high latency, we are going to use different programs in order to reliably measure it.
Programs to look at the latency of the connection to the local network and the Internet
Currently we have many programs that allow us to look at the latency of the connection to the local network and the Internet, having different tools to measure latency is essential to know where the problem of the slowness of the connection is. Although we may have been able to “detect” high latency based on the user experience of instant messaging, web browsing, and online gaming, this could simply be your impression and the latency is correct.
The quintessential tool for checking connection latency is “ping”, this tool is installed by default on all operating systems. Its operation is very basic but effective, it consists of sending an ICMP Echo Request packet to a specific server or destination IP address, upon receiving it, this equipment will send an ICMP Echo Reply message automatically (as long as the firewalls allow it and we have it enabled This function). Once the package is received, a quick calculation will be made of how long it took for the package to be received.
Depending on the type of Internet connection (ADSL, cable, FTTH) and the routes that the different packets follow, this time will be longer or shorter. It also depends on how we are connected to our home router, via WiFi, ethernet network cable, through PLC devices etc. The entire route from the origin to the destination is measured, therefore, if we want to check the latency in the local network we should do a “ping” to the default gateway of our router. If we want to measure the latency of the Internet connection, it is advisable to connect via Ethernet network cable to the router, and proceed to carry out the tests, in order to add the latency of the WiFi or the PLC devices.
Ping tool
Ping is the most basic tool that we can use to measure latency, this tool is incorporated in all operating systems, including all versions of Windows. To run it, just press the “Windows” key and put “cmd” in the search engine, press enter and the console will open to execute orders. Once we are here, we must put the following:
ping IP_destino
For example:
ping 8.8.8.8
In case we want to do an infinite ping, you can use the “-t” argument, as you can see here:
ping 8.8.8.8 -t
There are also other arguments to modify the operation of the “ping”, to see the help you will simply have to do “ping -h”
If we want to execute a certain number of “pings”, we can do it with the argument -n and the number of ICMP Echo Request.
WinMTR
WinMTR is a completely free tool for Windows operating systems, within this tool we will have the traceroute functionalities and also “ping”, so that users will be able to check the “jumps” from a source to a destination, and they will also be able to check the connection latency. The first thing we have to do is download WinMTR from SourceForge , once downloaded we unzip it, and we can see two folders, one with the program for 32-bit operating systems, and another folder with the program for 64-bit operating systems. Depending on your operating system, you will have to run one version or another.
This program is portable, that is, it does not need any type of installation, just run the program and the graphical user interface will automatically appear:
In the “host” part is where we will put the IP address or domain, then we click on “Start” to start the tests. We also have the possibility to click on the “Options” section. Here we can configure the interval in seconds for sending packets, we can also configure the size of the ping, the maximum number of hosts in the LRU list and the ability to resolve domain names.
If we put the Google DNS and click on “Start”, it will show us all the packets that are being sent. The first thing we will see is the route from the origin to the destination of the packets, that is, the different hops (routers) through which the packets pass. And we can also see the percentage of lost packages based on those sent and received. In addition, we can see the best, average and worst latency of the different jumps. It is possible that there is a latency problem in the first jump of our operator, since the worst latency is 33ms, then the average is 6ms.
A very interesting feature of WinMTR is that we can leave it running for hours, to continuously monitor the latency of the connection to see if there is any kind of problem. Finally, we will have the possibility to export the information in HTML format.
NirSoft NetworkLatencyView
This tool is in charge of listening to all the TCP connections of the operating system, and calculating the connection latency for each new detected TCP connection. For each IP, NetworkLatencyView will show up to 10 different values and the average of them. Latency is calculated in a similar way to the typical “ping” that we have talked about earlier. Other features of this program that checks the latency of TCP connections are that it will allow us to export latency information in different formats, including text, CSV, HTML, XML and others.
The only requirement that we will need to make this program work is to install the WinPcap program to capture all the packets from the wired or wireless network interface, otherwise it will not work. We could also use “Raw Socket” but it may not work on some operating systems.
When starting the program, the first thing to do is choose the wired or WiFi network card that we are using:
Once chosen, it will begin to monitor all the TCP connections that we are going to establish, in addition, we will be able to see up to a total of 10 measurements to these TCP connections and it will also offer us the “average” of the latency that we have. Next, you can see the latency when browsing the web through different websites:
As you can see, this tool is really interesting because it allows us to measure the latency of the TCP connections that we establish with our Windows computer.
NetScan Tools Basic Edition
This NetScan Tools Basic Edition software will allow us to perform different tests on data networks, it incorporates different utilities to make use of DNS, the typical ping, a ping with a graphical user interface where we will see the latency easily and quickly, we can also execute a “ping scanner”, perform a traceroute and even a Whois. This program is an all-in-one and is completely free, however, there is a more advanced and complete professional version that includes many other utilities.
The first thing we have to do is download this tool from the official website, install it in our operating system (it is not portable), and proceed to run it. In the menu we can see different aspects and configurations, but what interests us is the “ping and traceroute” section that we have at the bottom left.
Once inside “ping and traceroute” we can ping and it will show us the time it took to receive the ICMP Echo reply from the target, as you can see here:
We also have the option of using the “Graphical ping” option where it will show us the latency of the connection in a graph that is very easy to understand.
As you have seen, this tool is really simple and completely free, and will allow us to see the latency with a graphical user interface.
Another very interesting free tool that will allow us to measure the latency of the connection is PingPlotter.
Other tools to measure latency (paid)
There are other software much more complete to measure latency and many other aspects of local networks and the Internet, however, these programs are paid. Next, we put a list with its main characteristics.
- PRTG Network Monitor : This program is in charge of monitoring all systems, devices, traffic and also the different applications. It is a software that serves much more than to measure the latency of the connection, in addition, we must bear in mind that this software is paid, although we have a “trial” version to test it thoroughly without limitations.
- SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM): This program is really advanced, in fact, it is worth more than € 1,300 for its license. It allows us to carry out a complete monitoring of the network, both of the routers, switches, NAS, other PCs, printers and much more, it will allow us to make maps where we will see all the connected devices and much more.
We hope that with all these free and paid tools, you can keep the latency of your connection to the local network and the Internet under control.