For online games that only require position and input data, many players already struggle with bandwidth and network congestion. The Metaverse will only exacerbate these demands. The good news is that broadband penetration and bandwidth continue to improve around the world. Computation discussed more in Section 3 is also improving and can help replace constrained data transfers by predicting what should happen up to the point where the “real” data can be replaced.
The biggest challenge in networking is also its least known: latency. Latency refers to the time it takes for data to travel from one point to another and back. Latency is often considered the least important KPI compared uganda mobile database to network bandwidth and reliability. That’s because most internet traffic is one-way, or asynchronous. It doesn’t matter if there’s a 100ms, 200ms, or even two-second delay between sending a WhatsApp message and receiving a read receipt. It also doesn’t matter if it takes 20ms, 150ms, or 300ms from clicking YouTube’s pause button until the video stops. When watching Netflix, it’s more important for the stream to play continuously than for it to play instantly. To do this, Netflix artificially delays the start of the video stream so that your device can download it before the moment you watch.