Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register

Quick Links


Shells Virtual Desktop
BMail.ag - Secure Email Service
Server.net
CPLicense.net
VPS Server
Buy VPN
Vultr
VMs for AI
HostDare
ReliableSite White-Label Dedicated Hosting for Resellers
InterServer VPS
BMail.ag - Secure Email Service
Best VPN
High-Performance Bare Metal Server Solutions
Karvl.com
Server Mania Cloud Hosting
DataWagon Hosting
AlphaVPS Hosting
Evoxt.com
Clouvider
VPS Hosting with NVMe
Residential IPs in the US & 4G Mobile Proxies in EU & US with Unlimited Bandwidth
ReliableSite White-Label Dedicated Hosting for Resellers
Rabisu - Hosting Solutions
Shells Virtual Desktop

Categories

In this Discussion

Home › General
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

What's the best connected city in the USA?

jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker
edited July 2025 in General

Just a quick question: Which city has the best connectivity in terms of all across USA?

Please, do not tell me which city or even DC has the highest fiber cap in all of the country. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested from which city one can get the best connectivity and network speed to all major cities in NA (as well as obviously internationally).

Now, geographically that most likely would be somewhere in between Denver, Dallas, and Chicago - but geography doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot wrt the internet. For example, just a wild and arbitrary example, it might be the case that there just so happen to be, say 3 major fiber-"routes" from east to west (or vice versa) who just so happen to pass only through certain cities or that, say Atlanta - Dallas is great but Dallas- Seattle is crappy. Please forgive my wildly construed example but I wanted to make clear what my question is about.

Thanks for any clear and well based response, ideally with a few good DCs and/or providers mentioned as well!

Thanked by 1dedipromo
«13

Comments

  • Protocol903Protocol903 Member

    I dont know about Internationally, but as someone living in Asia, my best ping to US is with New York(of course, with a good provider aswell). Lowest I've ever seen is 201 with ReliableSite looking glass.

    For intra-US connectivity, given my limited yet thorough experience as a sysadmin controlling US servers, I've found LA to be next best.

    Thanked by 1MrRadic
  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider
    edited July 2025

    I was thinking Ashburn area in Virginia since many of the big corps like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc are there. Digital Realty has an interesting post about Ashburn, just read it.
    https://www.digitalrealty.com/resources/articles/northern-virginia-ashburn-data-centers
    Didn't know Ashburn was called "Data Center Valley".
    Another interesting read posted this year as well.
    https://christianhern.medium.com/how-did-ashburn-virginia-become-the-center-of-the-digital-universe-c048e8e599d7
    Also from the post (but unrelated to connectivity): Today 26% of all energy consumption in Virginia is consumed by data centers, the highest by a factor of any US state.

    Thanked by 9nick_ TimboJones dedipromo sh97 Xrmaddness satorik mandala zGato Tarball
  • alt_alt_ Member
    edited July 2025

    From my understanding:

    | Region        | Best US City (usually)  |
| ------------- | ----------------------- |
| Europe        | New York / Ashburn      |
| Asia (East)   | Los Angeles / Seattle   |
| Oceania       | Los Angeles             |
| South America | Miami / Dallas          |
| Canada        | Chicago / NYC           |

    Correct me if I'm wrong.

    Thanked by 2smallpancakes lmonaro
  • conceptconcept Member

    Like mentioned, ReliableSite NYC is probably one of my favorites for US and EU connectivity. They use QTS Piscataway 1.

    Also Chicago is great. Most notably, 350 E Cermak
    https://www.peeringdb.com/fac/466

    Thanked by 1MrRadic
  • TimboJonesTimboJones Member

    @jsg said:
    but geography doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot wrt the internet.

    Physics called, it said you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about.

  • TimboJonesTimboJones Member
    edited July 2025

    @Protocol903 said:
    I dont know about Internationally, but as someone living in Asia, my best ping to US is with New York(of course, with a good provider aswell). Lowest I've ever seen is 201 with ReliableSite looking glass.

    Did Asia move to the East Coast of the US when I wasn't looking?

    For intra-US connectivity, given my limited yet thorough experience as a sysadmin controlling US servers, I've found LA to be next best.

    You're doing it wrong. NY would have like 70ms extra latency vs LA from Asia.

    Thanked by 2alt_ Falzo
  • tall_icetall_ice Member

    Can I ask how does SF/SJ compare to LA? I think LA is probably better. Anyone have a feel for how much better?

    Say I only care about the rest of continental US, and not asia.

  • conceptconcept Member
    edited July 2025

    @tall_ice said:
    Can I ask how does SF/SJ compare to LA? I think LA is probably better. Anyone have a feel for how much better?

    Say I only care about the rest of continental US, and not asia.

    Most if not all traffic to/from SF/SJ routes through LA anyways so, LA is better.

    Thanked by 1tall_ice
  • TimboJonesTimboJones Member

    @alt_ said:
    From my understanding:

    | Region        | Best US City (usually)  |
| ------------- | ----------------------- |
| Europe        | New York / Ashburn      |
| Asia (East)   | Los Angeles / Seattle   |
| Oceania       | Los Angeles             |
| South America | Miami / Dallas          |
| Canada        | Chicago / NYC           |

    Correct me if I'm wrong.

    Canada is longer than the US Coast to Coast. So for me in Vancouver, Seattle is ~15ms away but Toronto/New York would be around ~70ms. West Coast US better for me than East Coast.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @TimboJones said:

    @jsg said:
    but geography doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot wrt the internet.

    Physics called, it said you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about.

    I think his point is that just because a city is geographically centralized doesn't mean it's network centralized. You'd likely be better off being in Chicago or Dallas than Omaha because Omaha is probably backhauled to one of those, etc. I'm not a network guru but that doesn't seem particularly controversial to me.

    Thanked by 2jsg MannDude
  • alt_alt_ Member
    edited July 2025

    @TimboJones said:

    @alt_ said:
    From my understanding:

    | Region        | Best US City (usually)  |
| ------------- | ----------------------- |
| Europe        | New York / Ashburn      |
| Asia (East)   | Los Angeles / Seattle   |
| Oceania       | Los Angeles             |
| South America | Miami / Dallas          |
| Canada        | Chicago / NYC           |

    Correct me if I'm wrong.

    Canada is longer than the US Coast to Coast. So for me in Vancouver, Seattle is ~15ms away but Toronto/New York would be around ~70ms. West Coast US better for me than East Coast.

    You're right. Seattle to Vancouver’s just a quick hop over the border.
    West Coast makes way more sense for BC. I'm in Ontario, so East Coast routes better for me.

  • TimboJonesTimboJones Member

    @raindog308 said:

    @TimboJones said:

    @jsg said:
    but geography doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot wrt the internet.

    Physics called, it said you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about.

    I think his point is that just because a city is geographically centralized doesn't mean it's network centralized. You'd likely be better off being in Chicago or Dallas than Omaha because Omaha is probably backhauled to one of those, etc. I'm not a network guru but that doesn't seem particularly controversial to me.

    Geography/distance/latency are directly involved in bandwidth. It's IN the bandwidth formulas.

    "Doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot wrt the internet" will get you laughed at in networking class unless it was the first hour of the first day of class.

    He already stated his definition of best.

    I'm interested from which city one can get the best connectivity and network speed to all major cities in NA (as well as obviously internationally).

  • dedipromodedipromo Member

    OK, since I'm also interested in this topic... did a 20-minute deep research (with AI) and the answer is Ashburn.

    Here's the infographic.

    https://my.ts.st/peering-data-let.html

    Thanked by 3tall_ice jsg vedran
  • Motion3549Motion3549 Member

    The best one is @PureVoltage then @MikeA

    Thanked by 1PureVoltage
  • tall_icetall_ice Member

    @dedipromo said:
    OK, since I'm also interested in this topic... did a 20-minute deep research (with AI) and the answer is Ashburn.

    Here's the infographic.

    https://my.ts.st/peering-data-let.html

    I am surprised by Seattle. I was expecting LA to be better connected than Seattle.

    Therefore, while Seattle may not have the sheer volume of international cables as California, its ecosystem is of paramount importance for any organization whose business depends on optimized connectivity to theworld's two largest cloud platforms. Its strength lies not in broad international access, but in hyper-specialized access to the core of the cloud.

    That's interesting way to looking at it.

    And what does LA/Bay area means...lol? Why did you group them together? Are you saying these two cities are so well connected they are basically 1?

    Thank you for your write up!

  • Protocol903Protocol903 Member

    @TimboJones said: You're doing it wrong. NY would have like 70ms extra latency vs LA from Asia.

    Read again.
    I said intra. Not inter.
    Within US. Not FROM OUTSIDE.

    @TimboJones said: Did Asia move to the East Coast of the US when I wasn't looking?

    Most connections from Asia to US is through East coast. If geography was the only thing determining the latency, then would you be right.

  • satoriksatorik Member

    Unclear question. How do you define "connectivity"? Is it about the lowest average latency, or most T1 carrier/fiber/dark fiber pass this city, or the highest bandwidth capacity, or the biggest number of peers at its IXP?

    Thanked by 3mandala tentor Tarball
  • fluffernutterfluffernutter Member

    @TimboJones said:

    @alt_ said:
    From my understanding:

    | Region        | Best US City (usually)  |
| ------------- | ----------------------- |
| Europe        | New York / Ashburn      |
| Asia (East)   | Los Angeles / Seattle   |
| Oceania       | Los Angeles             |
| South America | Miami / Dallas          |
| Canada        | Chicago / NYC           |

    Correct me if I'm wrong.

    Canada is longer than the US Coast to Coast. So for me in Vancouver, Seattle is ~15ms away but Toronto/New York would be around ~70ms. West Coast US better for me than East Coast.

    A lot of Canadian ISPs only peer in Chicago, so sometimes a lot of Vancouver/Toronto traffic gets routed to Chicago. Noticed this with Telus and Bell. It actually does make Chicago the overall best location for serving Canadian visitors, which is really stupid overall.

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    @satorik said:
    Unclear question. How do you define "connectivity"? Is it about the lowest average latency, or most T1 carrier/fiber/dark fiber pass this city, or the highest bandwidth capacity, or the biggest number of peers at its IXP?

    Smart question - but too sophisticated. As you might have seen it's hard to get a reasonable answer to my question at all. Example: although I clearly said that my question is about within the USA quite a few told about connectivity from Asia, Europe, or whatnot. I guess, most only saw the title and didn't read OP.

    Current status: So, it seems it's one of

    • Chicago (but I don't care a flying fuck about connectivity to the "state #51")
    • Dallas (way more interesting to me)
    • Denver (?)

    And I bet that each of these has way lower latency to the west coast than Ashburn. Feel free to point me to other major city alternatives.

    A propos latency, back to your question: I don't care about dark fiber (laid but not lit) or unused wavelengths but about actually available and used/usable cap. Similarly I care relatively little about Google, Microsoft, etc. cables; I'm interested in "open" cap.

    Thanks for all the posts although so far almost none really addressed my question.

    Thanked by 1JohnnySac
  • aluyaluy Member, Patron Provider

    i wonder how good @fiberstate has

    Thanked by 1fiberstate
  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker
    edited July 2025

    An extra THANK YOU to @raindog308 who set "Mr. totally clueless but condescending know-it-all" (or shorter, "the asshole") straight - but of course got lectured as well, as if latency, to top it off misunderstood, was the only factor.

    Well, just take it as a great example of the difference between a seasoned pro like raindog and an utterly clueless big-snout...

  • APIAPI Member

    @dedipromo said:
    OK, since I'm also interested in this topic... did a 20-minute deep research (with AI) and the answer is Ashburn.

    Here's the infographic.

    https://my.ts.st/peering-data-let.html

    What did you use to create the infographic?

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran
    edited July 2025

    @alt_ said:
    From my understanding:

    | Region        | Best US City (usually)  |
| ------------- | ----------------------- |
| Europe        | New York / Ashburn      |
| Asia (East)   | Los Angeles / Seattle   |
| Oceania       | Los Angeles             |
| South America | Miami / Dallas          |
| Canada        | Chicago / NYC           |

    Correct me if I'm wrong.

    Basically, NY is best to EU, Ashburn has +10ms
    Seattle is better for Taiwan, Tokyo, 98ms vs 118ms for Tokyo

    Thanked by 2alt_ smallpancakes
  • alexbrown9201alexbrown9201 Member

    Seattle is one of the best connectivity.

  • TarballTarball Member

    @jsg said:

    @satorik said:
    Unclear question. How do you define "connectivity"? Is it about the lowest average latency, or most T1 carrier/fiber/dark fiber pass this city, or the highest bandwidth capacity, or the biggest number of peers at its IXP?

    Smart question - but too sophisticated. As you might have seen it's hard to get a reasonable answer to my question at all. Example: although I clearly said that my question is about within the USA quite a few told about connectivity from Asia, Europe, or whatnot. I guess, most only saw the title and didn't read OP.

    Current status: So, it seems it's one of

    • Chicago (but I don't care a flying fuck about connectivity to the "state #51")
    • Dallas (way more interesting to me)
    • Denver (?)

    And I bet that each of these has way lower latency to the west coast than Ashburn. Feel free to point me to other major city alternatives.

    A propos latency, back to your question: I don't care about dark fiber (laid but not lit) or unused wavelengths but about actually available and used/usable cap. Similarly I care relatively little about Google, Microsoft, etc. cables; I'm interested in "open" cap.

    Thanks for all the posts although so far almost none really addressed my question.

    The question is extremely vague - you first mentioned "best connectivity and network speed" but now you seem more concerned with latency.

    Chicago and Dallas are the most well-connected cities in the Central US, with direct fiber routes to both coasts and access to almost all North American T1s.

    Thanked by 1jsg
  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker
    edited July 2025

    @Tarball said:

    @jsg said:

    @satorik said:
    Unclear question. How do you define "connectivity"? Is it about the lowest average latency, or most T1 carrier/fiber/dark fiber pass this city, or the highest bandwidth capacity, or the biggest number of peers at its IXP?

    Smart question - but too sophisticated. As you might have seen it's hard to get a reasonable answer to my question at all. Example: although I clearly said that my question is about within the USA quite a few told about connectivity from Asia, Europe, or whatnot. I guess, most only saw the title and didn't read OP.

    Current status: So, it seems it's one of

    • Chicago (but I don't care a flying fuck about connectivity to the "state #51")
    • Dallas (way more interesting to me)
    • Denver (?)

    And I bet that each of these has way lower latency to the west coast than Ashburn. Feel free to point me to other major city alternatives.

    A propos latency, back to your question: I don't care about dark fiber (laid but not lit) or unused wavelengths but about actually available and used/usable cap. Similarly I care relatively little about Google, Microsoft, etc. cables; I'm interested in "open" cap.

    Thanks for all the posts although so far almost none really addressed my question.

    The question is extremely vague - you first mentioned "best connectivity and network speed" but now you seem more concerned with latency.

    Chicago and Dallas are the most well-connected cities in the Central US, with direct fiber routes to both coasts and access to almost all North American T1s.

    Thanks for that actually useful answer! And yes, my wording certainly wasn't good, but you see, it's not that easy to express a complicated question in another language, plus finding a balance between professionally well described but igniting a lot of "huh?" vs. being easily understandable but somewhat vague..

    Whatever, thank you! That was the kind of info I was looking for. Maybe you can point me to somwhere with some tangible data supporting your (quite likely correct) take?

    Edit @all: mentioning some DCs and/or providers with a presence there would be very welcome.

  • conceptconcept Member

    Here are some providers with presence in Chicago
    @qps
    @kuroit @ManishPant
    @dustinc
    @Clouvider
    @hosthatch
    @GTHost

    Thanked by 4ManishPant kuroit jsg Clouvider
  • kuroitkuroit Member, Host Rep, Megathread Squad

    Lets try!

    Thanked by 1jsg
  • kuroitkuroit Member, Host Rep, Megathread Squad 
     Location           : Chicago, Illinois-IL, United States
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Speedtest.net (Region: NORTH AMERICA)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Location         Latency     Loss    DL Speed       UP Speed       Server      

 ISP: Kuroit 

 Nearest          0.31 ms     0.0%    9383.92 Mbps   8075.96 Mbps   KamaTera, Inc. - Chicago, IL 

 Vancouver, BC    48.39 ms    N/A     9139.00 Mbps   1773.56 Mbps   TELUS - Vancouver, BC 
 Calgary, AB      47.42 ms    N/A     3177.71 Mbps   1878.09 Mbps   Shaw Communications - Calgary, AB 
 Winnipeg, MB     44.36 ms    0.0%    8845.31 Mbps   1858.52 Mbps   Voyageur Internet - Winnipeg, MB 
 Toronto, ON      12.62 ms    0.0%    9226.74 Mbps   7069.07 Mbps   Bell Canada - Toronto, ON 
 Montreal, QC     22.43 ms    0.0%    7184.74 Mbps   3956.12 Mbps   Rogers Wireless - Montréal, QC 

 New York, NY     17.76 ms    0.0%    9298.37 Mbps   4869.33 Mbps   Surfshark Ltd - New York, NY 
 Ashburn, VA      22.47 ms    0.0%    2918.03 Mbps   1171.61 Mbps   Rackdog - Ashburn, VA 
 Durham, NC       27.02 ms    N/A     3902.32 Mbps   589.08 Mbps    Spectrum - Durham, NC 
 Atlanta, GA      14.11 ms    0.0%    7279.70 Mbps   5747.59 Mbps   Clouvider Ltd - Atlanta, GA 
 Miami, FL        38.05 ms    0.0%    8204.32 Mbps   1206.02 Mbps   ReliableSite Hosting - Miami, FL 
 Dallas, TX       22.35 ms    0.0%    8070.52 Mbps   2084.06 Mbps   Hivelocity - Dallas, TX 
 Houston, TX      32.06 ms    N/A     9305.71 Mbps   2650.72 Mbps   Comcast - Houston, TX 
 Kansas, MO       12.51 ms    0.0%    9227.60 Mbps   4748.25 Mbps   Nocix - Kansas City, MO 
 Minneapolis, MN  8.59 ms     0.0%    9182.07 Mbps   2983.00 Mbps   US Internet - Minneapolis, MN 
 Chicago, IL      1.52 ms     0.0%    9481.93 Mbps   9472.45 Mbps   Hivelocity - Chicago, IL 
 Cleveland, OH    21.36 ms    0.0%    8938.30 Mbps   4172.92 Mbps   Cleveland Broadband - Cleveland, OH 
 Albuquerque, NM  31.98 ms    N/A     9194.63 Mbps   2705.91 Mbps   Comcast - Albuquerque, NM 
 Denver, CO       20.95 ms    0.0%    8994.36 Mbps   4173.88 Mbps   T-Mobile Fiber | Intrepid - Denver, CO 
 Portland, OR     49.92 ms    N/A     6774.96 Mbps   2003.47 Mbps   CenturyLink - Portland, OR 
 Las Vegas, NV    53.34 ms    N/A     4843.49 Mbps   1541.45 Mbps   Boost Mobile - Las Vegas, NV 
 Salt Lake, UT    32.78 ms    0.0%    4424.45 Mbps   1618.39 Mbps   Novva Data Centers - Salt Lake City, UT 
 Phoenix, AZ      41.76 ms    0.0%    3910.74 Mbps   2086.92 Mbps   Xiber LLC - Phoenix, AZ 
 Los Angeles, CA  54.64 ms    0.0%    9162.22 Mbps   525.91 Mbps    ReliableSite Hosting - Los Angeles, CA 
 San Jose, CA     46.17 ms    0.0%    5842.71 Mbps   2144.65 Mbps   Misaka Network, Inc. - San Jose, CA 
 Spokane, WA      50.98 ms    0.0%    5958.50 Mbps   1746.16 Mbps   Crunchbits - Spokane, WA 
 Seattle, WA      44.01 ms    0.0%    6086.70 Mbps   745.77 Mbps    Misaka Network, Inc. - Seattle, WA 

 Hermosillo, MX   63.04 ms    0.0%    9375.17 Mbps   1323.25 Mbps   Megacable - Hermosillo 
 Guadalajara, MX  51.14 ms    0.0%    1877.59 Mbps   186.97 Mbps    AT&T México - Guadalajara 
 Mexico City, MX  70.42 ms    N/A     5537.15 Mbps   368.70 Mbps    INFINITUM - Ciudad de México
    Thanked by 2concept vicaya
  • ralfralf Member

    @Protocol903 said:
    I dont know about Internationally, but as someone living in Asia, my best ping to US is with New York(of course, with a good provider aswell). Lowest I've ever seen is 201 with ReliableSite looking glass.

    My fiberstate server in SLC to HostHatch in SG is 179ms via LAX.
    Same server is 14ms to Racknerd LAX, which itself is 165ms to SG.

    FWIW my GreenCloud NYC server to SG is about 230ms.

Sign In or Register to comment.