Wireless gaming question

Kind of a weird question I think, maybe someone could answer this? Wireless is frowned upon in the gaming world generally because of "ping" or latency issues.

Could someone give me some kind of idea of the latency that could be expected when one connects to a US server in say, California, from a WiMax hotspot in the middle of Africa? Wired latency is pretty high from California to Kenya for instance, I was curious if the situation improves any when you're talking WiFi or WiMax instead.

I really don't know a great deal about wireless networking but I'd assume the "network path" is your hotspot in Kenya, up to the satellite, back down to the hotspot that is hopefully near the game server in California. If anyone could shed some light on this I'd be grateful.

It all depends on the upload/download speed of your internet connection in africa. If you are on a dialup connection, it doesn't matter what kind of connection your on wireless/Ethernet the ping is going to be slow if you are playing games on a server in Califiornia.

Usually i believe a ping of 300 or so is counted as slow, but not all games require a high speed connection.

does this answer your question?

Unfortunately no, doesn't answer my question For an example say WiMax connectivity in Kenya connecting to servers in California. I'm trying to determine what the "ping" would be. 300 is sort of slow, yes, but I'm trying to generally avoid the 800 ping range more than anything else, 500 would be doable.

I don't know how wireless figures into the equation. I know a wired 4mbit down, 1.5 up cable connection here in the states will ping a Kenyan server (connected by DSL) at an 800 ping-rate. I wonder if wireless improves this situation any?

Wireless is just a connection protocol, the ping is still limited to the speed of your internet connection you are connecting through.

You can have the fastest wireless connection, but on a slow ADSL, you will still get a slow ping to the states.

Does that answer your question? (sorry have trouble understanding)

I appreciate the responses You probably are making sense to some people, notably those that know more about this stuff than I do

I was under the assumption that aDSL is a wired solution. Ping is determined by how long it takes to go from point A to point B through the wires and it's only as fast as it's weakest link (make sense?). The farther you go, the worse the lines in between, the higher the ping.

If you have say, WiMax connectivity (advertised as 56mbps or other high download rate) I thought your signal is sent from your PC to your router (wired or wireless, doesn't matter to me) then from your router to the "wireless access point" (this is where I really don't know). From the wireless access point I thought the signal is shot into space, bounces off satellite, is received at the wireless access point somewhere else, then sent to router, then to whatever is connected.

If I'm totally off let me know. I wanted to know what kind of ping would be normal from Kenya to California through WiMax I am close to California. I don't have a wireless access point here, I am on cabled connection or I'd just be looking for a Kenyan IP address that is also utilizing WiMax.

I get what you mean now, yes you are right in what you are saying. Although the speed of WiMax is really determined by the signal you are able to receive, the amount of users using it within the particular "zone" and of course the speed your plan is on.

I do not believe you will actually be able to get a 56mbps speed off a WiMax (maybe under optimum conditions). Your ping will most likely be the same speed if not slower than your existing adsl connection. If you want to play a game without much lag, try to pick a server that is as close to your location as possible.

I would not know the typical ping you would get between Kenya and California (i dont even live in the states lol)