If you have been seeing improvements in internet connectivity in Pakistan during the past two weeks, especially with reduced lag and latency, now we know why.
For those who don’t know, Cloudfare is a content delivery network (CDN), which basically powers:
- 10% of internet requests overall,
- content that is served to 2.8 billion people 24/7,
- 8 million internet websites and services.
Massive Improvements for Online Services in Pakistan
As per preliminary reports, you may be already seeing latency per request decrease by over 3x and as much as 150ms.
This means that your favorite websites, online apps and services will load quicker than ever. For those who play online games like Fortnite and others, they will see a huge decrease in online lag from now on.
Cloudfare says that these numbers are expected to further improve since they are still tuning routing for their customers.
Latency from PTCL to Cloudflare customers reduces by over 3x across Pakistan. Courtesy: Cedexis
How does it work?
Whenever you try to visit a website, you need to send a request to a server. The farther the server is, the more time it will take for the website to finally load.
Now suppose you weren’t the only one sending the requests. The more requests sent to the server, the more slower it gets back to you (and finally starts loading the website for you). In fact, too many requests could result in a denial of service attack. Think Daraz and other e-commerce sites here on Black Friday, and you get the idea.
Cloudflare basically has servers all around the world. They also help you secure your websites and boost performance via its edge connect network
Another CDN, Akamai already has a strategic partnership agreement with PTCL, helping to serve content to Pakistani users faster than ever before. Now with Cloudflare joining the ranks, expect more improvements as you run out of excuses for missing that headshot in your favorite FPS game.