ICMP RTT route report from Melbourne, Australia to Seattle, USA: average latency 169.5 ms, 0% packet loss, and jitter 4.06 ms.

🇦🇺 Melbourne, Australia (MEL) → 🇺🇸 Seattle, USA (SEA)

Measurement round: 2026-08-15T04:03:13Z.

During the measurement round 2026-08-15T04:03:13Z, 50 ICMP echo probes from Melbourne, Australia to Seattle, USA returned with zero packet loss and an average round-trip time of 169.5 ms. The minimum and maximum observed values were 163.18 ms and 185.11 ms, respectively, while a standard deviation of 5.3 ms and jitter of 4.06 ms point to a relatively steady trans-Pacific path at the time of testing.

The observed latency is 1.31 times the straight-line fiber floor implied by the 13,166 km great-circle distance, corresponding to a fiber efficiency of 76.1%. This route therefore carries the physical-distance overhead expected for a long crossing to the US West Coast, with headroom that is reasonable rather than exceptional.

Within the present cohort of 19 outbound routes, this route ranks 7th by latency and shows a median variability ratio of 3.08%, placing its stability in the upper-middle portion of the peer set. The 0% loss and low jitter are the strongest signals in this dataset, suggesting that the route is performing reliably even though its overall latency tier is marked Fair.

Latency Summary

Metric	Value
RTT	169.5 ms
Jitter	4.06 ms
Packet Loss	0%
Standard Fiber Floor	128.93 ms
Fiber Efficiency	76.1%
Latency Tier	Fair
Source Region	Asia Pacific
Destination Region	North America

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: MEL → SEA

50 ICMP echo samples at 100 ms intervals · round 2026-08-15T04:03:13Z · avg 169.5 ± 0.75 ms (SE)

Sample distribution: box = interquartile range (165.2–172.3 ms), median 167.7 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 (128.9 ms) for this route.

Full 50-sample dataset

Seq	Offset (ms)	RTT (ms)
1	0	177.83
2	100	181.99
3	200	180.13
4	300	171.23
5	400	167.74
6	500	171.38
7	600	166.75
8	700	173.10
9	800	166.56
10	900	169.35
11	1000	174.98
12	1100	172.82
13	1200	167.44
14	1300	164.90
15	1400	169.13
16	1500	177.07
17	1600	173.88
18	1700	166.93
19	1800	164.34
20	1900	163.41
21	2000	163.18
22	2100	164.38
23	2200	165.58
24	2300	165.32
25	2400	167.59
26	2500	164.78
27	2600	168.24
28	2700	172.43
29	2800	171.99
30	2900	170.73
31	3000	169.75
32	3100	167.38
33	3200	166.34
34	3300	175.29
35	3400	168.68
36	3500	165.06
37	3600	181.97
38	3700	174.30
39	3800	166.89
40	3900	164.45
41	4000	165.21
42	4100	167.98
43	4200	164.97
44	4300	165.12
45	4400	165.40
46	4500	164.02
47	4600	164.33
48	4700	171.40
49	4800	166.17
50	4900	185.11

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 Melbourne (-37.81400, 144.96332) and Seattle (47.60621, -122.33207). It does not disclose either facility address.

Physical Reference	Value
WGS-84 geodesic distance	13,166 km
Vacuum RTT floor	87.83 ms
Standard fiber RTT floor ( $n_g=1.4679$ )	128.93 ms
Low-latency fiber material floor	128.41 ms
Engineering floor (5% path allowance)	135.4 ms
Research 1.33× mapped-fiber reference	171.48 ms
Estimated unamplified path loss	2764.9 dB
Transparent optical spans / inline amplifiers	173 / 172
Published RTT inflation over fiber floor	1.31×

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 (2026-08-15T04:03:13Z) collected 50 ICMP echo samples on this route. Distribution statistics from that round:

Round Statistic	Value
Minimum RTT	163.18 ms
Average RTT	169.5 ms
Maximum RTT	185.11 ms
Standard deviation	5.3 ms
Stdev / average	3.1%

RTT trend

Estimated route stability across the selected time window.

Average: 169.8 ms
Minimum: 168.4 ms
Maximum: 171.0 ms
Average loss: 0.03%

Route Context

Departure PoP: Melbourne (MEL)
Destination PoP: Seattle (SEA)
Region overview: Asia Pacific → North America
Full global matrix: Backbone Latency Matrix
Physical methodology: Theoretical Fiber Latency

Reverse direction

Seattle to Melbourne latency and RTT — 171.4 ms

Fastest routes departing Melbourne (MEL)

Melbourne to Sydney latency and RTT — 9.8 ms
Melbourne to Singapore latency and RTT — 88.3 ms
Melbourne to Tokyo latency and RTT — 113.2 ms
Melbourne to Hong Kong latency and RTT — 137.4 ms
Melbourne to Taipei latency and RTT — 141.7 ms

Fastest routes arriving at Seattle (SEA)

Los Angeles to Seattle latency and RTT — 27.5 ms
New York to Seattle latency and RTT — 59 ms
Ashburn to Seattle latency and RTT — 61.3 ms
Miami to Seattle latency and RTT — 82 ms
Tokyo to Seattle latency and RTT — 84.6 ms

Same corridor (Asia Pacific → North America)

Tokyo to Los Angeles latency and RTT — 101.5 ms
Taipei to Seattle latency and RTT — 115.7 ms
Hong Kong to Seattle latency and RTT — 129.9 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/mel-sea.pings.{csv,json,yaml}. When citing, include the route, the measurement round timestamp, and the dataset version — for example: "Hats Network latency dataset, Melbourne → Seattle round 2026-08-15T04:03:13Z, CC BY 4.0".

Data auto-generated on August 15, 2026. Explore the full interactive latency matrix or browse more city-pair routes.

Melbourne, Australia → Seattle, USA RTT