ICMP RTT measurements from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Melbourne, Australia: average latency, jitter, packet loss, and route insights for August 2026.

🇿🇦 Johannesburg, South Africa (JNB) → 🇦🇺 Melbourne, Australia (MEL)

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

During the 2026-08-16T04:07:28Z measurement round, Johannesburg-to-Melbourne ICMP echo requests averaged 406.2 ms over 50 samples, with a minimum of 391.17 ms, a maximum of 483.64 ms and zero packet loss. The 16.4 ms standard deviation and 10.85 ms jitter put variation at about 4.0 percent of the average, a modest spread for a route whose minimum and maximum differ by roughly 92 ms.

This path was 18th of the 19 routes measured in the same round, meaning only one route in the set had a higher average latency. The network median standard-deviation-to-average ratio was 3.28 percent, so this route's variability sits slightly above the typical route while remaining within the same general range.

The 10,347 km great-circle distance corresponds to a fiber-floor RTT of approximately 101 ms, making the measured 406.2 ms average a 4.01x inflation over that ideal floor. With fiber efficiency at 24.9 percent, the route is best understood as a long-haul intercontinental path where substantial overhead beyond pure propagation is expected.

Latency Summary

Metric	Value
RTT	406.2 ms
Jitter	10.85 ms
Packet Loss	0%
Standard Fiber Floor	101.33 ms
Fiber Efficiency	24.9%
Latency Tier	High
Source Region	Africa
Destination Region	Asia Pacific

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: JNB → MEL

50 ICMP echo samples at 100 ms intervals · round 2026-08-16T04:07:28Z · avg 406.2 ± 2.32 ms (SE)

Sample distribution: box = interquartile range (395.6–410.7 ms), median 400.1 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 (101.3 ms) for this route.

Full 50-sample dataset

Seq	Offset (ms)	RTT (ms)
1	0	399.41
2	100	398.17
3	200	393.34
4	300	407.56
5	400	396.46
6	500	397.02
7	600	428.20
8	700	483.64
9	800	429.63
10	900	410.85
11	1000	418.56
12	1100	404.28
13	1200	413.99
14	1300	400.04
15	1400	393.83
16	1500	421.27
17	1600	414.45
18	1700	399.88
19	1800	396.39
20	1900	396.27
21	2000	393.32
22	2100	391.17
23	2200	393.47
24	2300	420.30
25	2400	410.10
26	2500	434.17
27	2600	435.30
28	2700	406.48
29	2800	398.32
30	2900	407.98
31	3000	402.60
32	3100	395.14
33	3200	392.82
34	3300	391.99
35	3400	400.12
36	3500	401.41
37	3600	406.76
38	3700	401.59
39	3800	394.22
40	3900	394.87
41	4000	395.33
42	4100	397.51
43	4200	392.68
44	4300	397.13
45	4400	395.13
46	4500	397.75
47	4600	411.95
48	4700	402.12
49	4800	407.88
50	4900	437.15

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 Johannesburg (-26.20227, 28.04363) and Melbourne (-37.81400, 144.96332). It does not disclose either facility address.

Physical Reference	Value
WGS-84 geodesic distance	10,347 km
Vacuum RTT floor	69.03 ms
Standard fiber RTT floor ( $n_g=1.4679$ )	101.33 ms
Low-latency fiber material floor	100.92 ms
Engineering floor (5% path allowance)	106.41 ms
Research 1.33× mapped-fiber reference	134.76 ms
Estimated unamplified path loss	2172.9 dB
Transparent optical spans / inline amplifiers	136 / 135
Published RTT inflation over fiber floor	4.01×

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	391.17 ms
Average RTT	406.2 ms
Maximum RTT	483.64 ms
Standard deviation	16.4 ms
Stdev / average	4.0%

RTT trend

Estimated route stability across the selected time window.

Average: 406.3 ms
Minimum: 403.5 ms
Maximum: 410.2 ms
Average loss: 0.01%

Route Context

Departure PoP: Johannesburg (JNB)
Destination PoP: Melbourne (MEL)
Region overview: Africa → Asia Pacific
Full global matrix: Backbone Latency Matrix
Physical methodology: Theoretical Fiber Latency

Reverse direction

Melbourne to Johannesburg latency and RTT — 405.5 ms

Fastest routes departing Johannesburg (JNB)

Johannesburg to London latency and RTT — 158 ms
Johannesburg to Amsterdam latency and RTT — 163.2 ms
Johannesburg to Paris latency and RTT — 164.4 ms
Johannesburg to Frankfurt latency and RTT — 166 ms
Johannesburg to Marseille latency and RTT — 172 ms

Fastest routes arriving at Melbourne (MEL)

Sydney to Melbourne latency and RTT — 9.8 ms
Singapore to Melbourne latency and RTT — 88.6 ms
Tokyo to Melbourne latency and RTT — 113.9 ms
Hong Kong to Melbourne latency and RTT — 138.4 ms
Taipei to Melbourne latency and RTT — 142 ms

Same corridor (Africa → Asia Pacific)

Johannesburg to Singapore latency and RTT — 311.6 ms
Johannesburg to Hong Kong latency and RTT — 318 ms
Johannesburg to Taipei latency and RTT — 329.8 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/jnb-mel.pings.{csv,json,yaml}. When citing, include the route, the measurement round timestamp, and the dataset version — for example: "Hats Network latency dataset, Johannesburg → Melbourne 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.

Johannesburg, South Africa → Melbourne, Australia RTT