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On mobile latency has constantly improved. GPRS/EDGE was often +100ms ping --> 3G 400-50ms depending on the day --> 4G/LTE 50-30ms and now I'm often getting sub-20ms ping on 5G connections.

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Yes, moving from voice-centric to IP-centric network technology has helped, and 5G paid laudable attention to latency. Their target for 5G is actually 1ms, but of course backhaul will dominate that.

1ms only to the tower.

Yes, backhaul (the connection from the tower to the Internet via the carrier's central facilities) dominates, as well as queueing latency for packets waiting to be delivered to phones, since traffic is overwhelmingly downloads.

I had heard the 1 ms number also and did some research some time ago. As far as I understood the 1 ms is for specialised low latency connections and devices not for the every day browsing.

Here are two sources which I found useful at that time https://broadbandlibrary.com/5g-low-latency-requirements/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-need-talk-low-latency-dean...

Yes, I subscribe to Dean Bubley and he is a very useful corrective to the telco boosterism on things like overselling 5G, network slicing, the dumpster fire that is RCS and so on.

Still, it's important that latency is top of mind for the designers of 5G, as it gets short shrift far too often.

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