ICMP round-trip time measurements from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Johannesburg, South Africa: average latency, jitter, packet loss, and route stability.

🇳🇱 Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS) → 🇿🇦 Johannesburg, South Africa (JNB)

Measurement round: 2026-08-16T04:07:28Z.

The 2026-08-16T04:07:28Z measurement round used 50 ICMP echo probes from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Johannesburg, South Africa and measured an average round-trip time of 171.9 ms, with a minimum of 163.56 ms and a maximum of 197.47 ms. Packet loss was 0%, and the 6.53 ms standard deviation indicates the path stayed in a tight band across the 8,991.8 km geodesic distance.

That RTT is 1.95 times the fiber floor of 88.05 ms for the same span, putting fiber efficiency at 51.2%. Jitter of 5.46 ms reinforces the stability picture: the route was loss-free and showed no large swings between consecutive replies.

In the 19-route measurement set for this network, this path ranked 15th, placing it near the slower end. Its standard deviation is about 3.8% of the average, just above the 3.28% median spread-to-average ratio across the set, so the added distance did not translate into disproportionate variability. The useful takeaway is that the intercontinental cost is visible mainly in the 171.9 ms average, while loss and jitter stayed contained.

Latency Summary

Metric	Value
RTT	171.9 ms
Jitter	5.46 ms
Packet Loss	0%
Standard Fiber Floor	88.05 ms
Fiber Efficiency	51.2%
Latency Tier	Fair
Source Region	Europe
Destination Region	Africa

Ping Measurement Series

The chart below renders the 50-sample ICMP echo measurement round for this route; an accessible table of every sample is included with the chart.

Ping series: AMS → JNB

50 ICMP echo samples at 100 ms intervals · round 2026-08-16T04:07:28Z · avg 171.9 ± 0.92 ms (SE)

Sample distribution: box = interquartile range (167.6–174.0 ms), median 170.2 ms · whiskers = min–max · diamond = round average · each dot is one measured sample.

How to read this chart

The shaded band spans the measured minimum to maximum RTT of all samples collected up to that point, and the thin line traces the running average. The final position therefore matches the round statistics exactly — the band only widens when a new extreme sample arrives.

The dashed line is the round average, and the shaded band at the bottom is the theoretical fiber-optic floor (88.0 ms) for this route.

Full 50-sample dataset

Seq	Offset (ms)	RTT (ms)
1	0	163.56
2	100	197.47
3	200	176.29
4	300	180.44
5	400	170.58
6	500	190.06
7	600	172.89
8	700	171.40
9	800	167.87
10	900	170.22
11	1000	178.56
12	1100	168.81
13	1200	174.04
14	1300	173.64
15	1400	167.04
16	1500	168.26
17	1600	168.22
18	1700	174.64
19	1800	170.03
20	1900	173.79
21	2000	171.00
22	2100	174.20
23	2200	178.37
24	2300	172.38
25	2400	167.70
26	2500	165.33
27	2600	168.04
28	2700	184.48
29	2800	184.36
30	2900	178.87
31	3000	170.21
32	3100	166.71
33	3200	172.75
34	3300	174.05
35	3400	172.59
36	3500	168.75
37	3600	171.86
38	3700	169.22
39	3800	166.25
40	3900	170.80
41	4000	166.18
42	4100	165.08
43	4200	169.47
44	4300	166.90
45	4400	167.50
46	4500	167.25
47	4600	166.36
48	4700	165.11
49	4800	169.03
50	4900	166.39

Download This Route's Data

This route's measurement round is published as open data (CC BY 4.0) in CSV, JSON, and YAML. See About This Measurement for citation guidance.

Download this dataset

Per-route ICMP ping series, released under CC BY 4.0. Uncompressed plain text — no decompression step needed.

CSV JSON YAML Full dataset

Theoretical Fiber Latency

The public physical reference uses the GeoNames city centres for Amsterdam (52.37403, 4.88969) and Johannesburg (-26.20227, 28.04363). It does not disclose either facility address.

Physical Reference	Value
WGS-84 geodesic distance	8,991.8 km
Vacuum RTT floor	59.99 ms
Standard fiber RTT floor ( $n_g=1.4679$ )	88.05 ms
Low-latency fiber material floor	87.7 ms
Engineering floor (5% path allowance)	92.47 ms
Research 1.33× mapped-fiber reference	117.11 ms
Estimated unamplified path loss	1888.3 dB
Transparent optical spans / inline amplifiers	119 / 118
Published RTT inflation over fiber floor	1.95×

Attenuation is used to estimate the number of 80 km optical spans; it does not directly slow light. See the full theoretical fiber latency, GeoNames, attenuation, and amplifier methodology.

Stability & Trend

The current measurement round (2026-08-16T04:07:28Z) collected 50 ICMP echo samples on this route. Distribution statistics from that round:

Round Statistic	Value
Minimum RTT	163.56 ms
Average RTT	171.9 ms
Maximum RTT	197.47 ms
Standard deviation	6.53 ms
Stdev / average	3.8%

RTT trend

Estimated route stability across the selected time window.

Average: 171.9 ms
Minimum: 170.3 ms
Maximum: 173.7 ms
Average loss: 0.02%

Route Context

Departure PoP: Amsterdam (AMS)
Destination PoP: Johannesburg (JNB)
Region overview: Europe → Africa
Full global matrix: Backbone Latency Matrix
Physical methodology: Theoretical Fiber Latency

Reverse direction

Johannesburg to Amsterdam latency and RTT — 163.2 ms

Fastest routes departing Amsterdam (AMS)

Amsterdam to London latency and RTT — 5.2 ms
Amsterdam to Frankfurt latency and RTT — 5.9 ms
Amsterdam to Paris latency and RTT — 7 ms
Amsterdam to Berlin latency and RTT — 7.2 ms
Amsterdam to Marseille latency and RTT — 19.6 ms

Fastest routes arriving at Johannesburg (JNB)

Berlin to Johannesburg latency and RTT — 172.1 ms
London to Johannesburg latency and RTT — 179.6 ms
Paris to Johannesburg latency and RTT — 180.9 ms
Frankfurt to Johannesburg latency and RTT — 188.4 ms
Marseille to Johannesburg latency and RTT — 198.5 ms

Same corridor (Europe → Africa)

Moscow to Johannesburg latency and RTT — 201.9 ms

About This Measurement

Published RTT reflects best-case backbone path behavior measured with ICMP echo probes between PoPs. End-user latency also depends on local access networks, congestion, routing policy, and traffic engineering. None of these values is an SLA.

The measurement round behind this page is published as open data under CC BY 4.0 in the Hats Network latency dataset. Per-pair files are available at /opendata/latency/latest/pairs/ams-jnb.pings.{csv,json,yaml}. When citing, include the route, the measurement round timestamp, and the dataset version — for example: "Hats Network latency dataset, Amsterdam → Johannesburg round 2026-08-16T04:07:28Z, CC BY 4.0".

Data auto-generated on August 16, 2026. Explore the full interactive latency matrix or browse more city-pair routes.

Amsterdam, Netherlands → Johannesburg, South Africa RTT