ICMP RTT measurements for Seattle, USA to Melbourne, Australia, with average latency, packet loss, fiber efficiency, and route context.

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

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

In the 2026-08-15T04:03:13Z measurement round, the Seattle-to-Melbourne ICMP echo test averaged 171.4 ms across 50 samples, with a minimum of 163.98 ms and a maximum of 188.68 ms. The standard deviation was 5.88 ms, jitter was 5.76 ms, and packet loss was 0%.

For a 13,166 km geodesic path, the vacuum floor is 87.83 ms and the fiber floor is 128.93 ms; the observed RTT works out to 75.2% fiber efficiency and 1.33 times the fiber floor. That places this route in the Fair latency tier.

This path ranked 18th among 19 outbound routes in the round, while the median variability across that outbound set was 3.08%. The route's standard deviation equaled about 3.4% of its average, slightly above that median, indicating that the higher absolute latency came with a bit more dispersion as well.

Latency Summary

Metric	Value
RTT	171.4 ms
Jitter	5.76 ms
Packet Loss	0%
Standard Fiber Floor	128.93 ms
Fiber Efficiency	75.2%
Latency Tier	Fair
Source Region	North America
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: SEA → MEL

50 ICMP echo samples at 100 ms intervals · round 2026-08-15T04:03:13Z · avg 171.4 ± 0.83 ms (SE)

Sample distribution: box = interquartile range (166.6–175.3 ms), median 170.3 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	177.96
2	100	167.80
3	200	169.06
4	300	164.90
5	400	170.39
6	500	165.49
7	600	169.31
8	700	176.15
9	800	184.15
10	900	172.88
11	1000	166.96
12	1100	164.62
13	1200	167.77
14	1300	180.59
15	1400	175.08
16	1500	167.02
17	1600	164.09
18	1700	169.56
19	1800	165.54
20	1900	165.15
21	2000	163.98
22	2100	166.42
23	2200	180.85
24	2300	170.25
25	2400	165.27
26	2500	176.08
27	2600	167.14
28	2700	170.71
29	2800	172.22
30	2900	174.09
31	3000	173.06
32	3100	175.35
33	3200	167.00
34	3300	179.96
35	3400	172.99
36	3500	167.21
37	3600	167.93
38	3700	165.38
39	3800	165.14
40	3900	164.56
41	4000	188.68
42	4100	176.98
43	4200	172.33
44	4300	176.04
45	4400	181.71
46	4500	178.30
47	4600	171.57
48	4700	165.97
49	4800	173.92
50	4900	174.44

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 Seattle (47.60621, -122.33207) and Melbourne (-37.81400, 144.96332). 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	1.33×

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	163.98 ms
Average RTT	171.4 ms
Maximum RTT	188.68 ms
Standard deviation	5.88 ms
Stdev / average	3.4%

RTT trend

Estimated route stability across the selected time window.

Average: 171.2 ms
Minimum: 169.5 ms
Maximum: 172.9 ms
Average loss: 0.03%

Route Context

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

Reverse direction

Melbourne to Seattle latency and RTT — 169.5 ms

Fastest routes departing Seattle (SEA)

Seattle to Los Angeles latency and RTT — 26.6 ms
Seattle to New York latency and RTT — 59 ms
Seattle to Ashburn latency and RTT — 62 ms
Seattle to Miami latency and RTT — 81.1 ms
Seattle to Tokyo latency and RTT — 84.8 ms

Fastest routes arriving at Melbourne (MEL)

Sydney to Melbourne latency and RTT — 9.8 ms
Singapore to Melbourne latency and RTT — 87.8 ms
Tokyo to Melbourne latency and RTT — 111.3 ms
Hong Kong to Melbourne latency and RTT — 137.4 ms
Taipei to Melbourne latency and RTT — 143.6 ms

Same corridor (North America → Asia Pacific)

Los Angeles to Tokyo latency and RTT — 100.9 ms
Seattle to Taipei latency and RTT — 115.1 ms
Seattle to Hong Kong latency and RTT — 130.7 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/sea-mel.pings.{csv,json,yaml}. When citing, include the route, the measurement round timestamp, and the dataset version — for example: "Hats Network latency dataset, Seattle → Melbourne 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.

Seattle, USA → Melbourne, Australia RTT