Wi-Fi jitter ruins consistency even when speed tests look great

[Amanhasnoname]

Speed tests measure bandwidth, which is almost irrelevant for trading. Orders and quotes are tiny packets, and what matters is how steadily they arrive.

Wi-Fi introduces jitter, meaning variable delay from one packet to the next. A connection with a 20 ms average can spike to 300 ms for a moment when a neighbour's network interferes, a microwave runs, or the router switches channels. Those spikes land randomly, and sometimes right when an order is sent.

A wired Ethernet connection removes most of that. It costs a cable and a few minutes of setup, and the improvement in consistency is usually visible immediately in ping graphs.

Tools that run continuous pings and plot the results show the spikes clearly. A day of data often reveals patterns tied to household activity or the time of day.

Even with Ethernet, other devices streaming video can saturate the router. Prioritising the trading machine in router settings, where possible, helps.

Has switching from Wi-Fi to a cable changed fill quality or reduced random freezes?