A few weeks ago, I got an email from a little boy who was very sick. All he ever wanted was to play a game in the Major Leagues, so I immediately started contacting ... oh, wait, that wasn't me. The email that reached my inbox was from a fellow denizen of Xbox Live by the name of Chad Yuhnke, and he had a few questions about how the system works. Let's see what Chad had to say, in his own words:
Will, I have a few technical questions about XBL, and was wondering if you could help answer them. My questions concern lag. I'm familiar with the difference between lag and latency, and am not asking you about problems with my setup or ISP or about cheaters. My question has more to do with the XBL infastructure.
Well Chad, even though you already know the difference between lag and latency, let's explain it for the readers that don't. By the way, I should begin by mentioning that I am not currently, nor have I ever been, any sort of network specialist. Sure, I was able to set up my own wireless network and get on Xbox Live, but that's about all I know how to do. So, if you notice I've made a mistake or if you have a better way of explaining something, feel free to send me a polite email letting me know what the real deal is. There's a good chance I'll be doing a follow-up, and I might be using some of your responses.


Anyway, latency is essentially a measure of the amount of time it takes for your Xbox to send and receive a data packet to and from the nearest Xbox Live server. It's not to be confused with your ping, which measures the amount of data your packet loses on the roundtrip. By definition, everyone who plays on live has a particular latency, although it affects certain people more than others. For instance, if I'm playing against someone who lives in New Zealand, their latency will be much greater than mine if we're playing on a server on the West Coast. Their data just has farther to travel than mine does, so they will always see things a few milliseconds after I do.

By the way, if you're ever wondering what your latency and ping are, just head to the Xbox dashboard, select settings, then go into Network Settings and hit the connect button. Once you're connected, press Y to check your connection statistics. Currently, my latency is 32 milliseconds, which is pretty speedy, but not nearly as fast as someone who is, say, right next door to the nearest server. My ping, on the other hand, is a perfect 20 out of 20, meaning I didn't lose any data. Try checking your latency, and let me know if you can beat my 32 ms.