johntonsoup on 20 February 2008
@sc94597
It's just the difference between latency and throughput (often erroneously called bandwidth). Latency is the time it takes a packet to get from point A to point B (so for example, 10 milliseconds). Throughput is the number of bits you can send out from point A during a specific interval. So, if your latency is too high to be able to exchange packets back and forth regularly, increasing your throughput will not help.
Try pinging google.co.uk (on windows, open a command window, type "ping amazon.co.uk" without the quotes, and notice the latency column). Then ping your router. You should notice a significant difference (unless you live in the UK, of course).
