Ping and lag in the United Kingdom

Estimated ping from the United Kingdom by city

Typical ping on a good wired cable or fibre line, in milliseconds. The nearest region for each city is highlighted.

Nearest region by city: Ireland for 6 of 10, London for 4 of 10.

Where the United Kingdom's traffic meets the rest of the internet

London is one of the busiest internet hubs in the world: the London Internet Exchange (LINX) and the big data centres in the Docklands and Slough are where most UK networks meet, and London has a cloud region of its own. So from anywhere in the UK the nearest server region is London or Ireland, both within a few milliseconds, and a game's UK or EU West servers are close to them. North American servers are a different matter: the Atlantic adds 80 ms or more, so joining US East lobbies from the UK always costs ping, however good the line.

Broadband in the United Kingdom and what it means for lag

Many UK homes are still on FTTC broadband, where fibre runs to the green street cabinet and the last stretch is the old copper phone line. On FTTC, the distance to the cabinet sets the speed, and a noisy line can switch on error correction (interleaving) that adds a few milliseconds to every packet. Full fibre (FTTP) and cable avoid that and are spreading quickly. On any of them, lag that only appears when someone uploads or streams is bufferbloat, and that is fixable at home.

Evenings, roughly 7 to 11 pm UK time, are when most homes stream and play at once. If lag only shows up then, run a Lag Check in the evening: lag under load points at your own line, a slow route at every hour points beyond it.

Routers in the United Kingdom and Smart Queue

Most people use the hub their provider sent, and those hubs rarely offer Smart Queue (SQM). With FTTP or cable you can usually add your own router behind the provider's hub or in its place and turn Smart Queue on there; the router guides list the brands that have it and where the setting is.

Questions about ping in the United Kingdom