Latency · The three hubs
Round trips between Asia's three hosting hubs from two public sources, each with its date and method, next to the floor that the speed of light in fibre allows. No figure here is our own.
Quick answer
What is the latency between Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo?
The latency between Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo is 30 to 72 ms round trip: 30 to 36 ms Singapore–Hong Kong, 49 to 59 ms Hong Kong–Tokyo, 67 to 72 ms Singapore–Tokyo, in Microsoft's July 2026 medians and WonderNetwork's pings to 2 November 2026. Copperstrait rents servers in all three from $143.25, crypto, no KYC.
| Route | Microsoft Azure median | WonderNetwork median | WonderNetwork hourly range | Great-circle distance | Fibre floor (calculated) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singapore – Hong Kong | 36 | 30.2 | 30.0 to 31.0 | 2,586 km | 25.3 |
| Hong Kong – Tokyo | 49 | 59.4 | 54.7 to 95.5 | 2,876 km | 28.2 |
| Singapore – Tokyo | 72 | 66.8 | 65.3 to 74.4 | 5,311 km | 52.0 |
| Tokyo – Osaka | 11 | — | — | 392 km | 3.8 |
Microsoft Azure: P50 round trip between its regions in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Osaka, 30 days ending 30 July 2026. Between the three hubs its figures are the same both ways; Osaka to Tokyo is 12 ms. WonderNetwork: median and range of 336 hourly runs of 30 pings, 19 October to 2 November 2026. Its runs go from Singapore to Hong Kong and Tokyo, and from Hong Kong to Tokyo. Fibre floor: our calculation, explained below. We publish no latency or speed figures of our own: we have not measured them. Test from where your users are once the server is yours.
It is the shortest round trip physics allows, not a measurement. Light travels at 299,792 km/s in a vacuum, an exact value published by NIST. In glass fibre it slows by the fibre's group index: 1.4682 at 1550 nm for Corning SMF-28e+, a common single-mode fibre.
That gives 299,792 ÷ 1.4682 ≈ 204,000 km/s, often rounded to 200,000 km/s. The floor is the distance there and back, divided by that speed.
Singapore to Hong Kong: 2 × 2,586 km ÷ 204,190 km/s = 25.3 ms. As a rule of thumb, each 100 km of straight-line distance adds about 1 ms of round trip. Distances here are great-circle distances between city centres.
Because packets follow cables and networks, not the great circle. Cables hug coasts, land at stations, and cross several carriers' routers on the way.
The gap differs by route. Singapore to Hong Kong measured 1.2 times its floor in WonderNetwork's runs. Hong Kong to Tokyo measured 2.1 times, and Singapore to Tokyo 1.3 times.
The path also moves. In two weeks, WonderNetwork's hourly average from Hong Kong to Tokyo ranged from 54.7 to 95.5 ms. Singapore to Hong Kong stayed between 30.0 and 31.0 ms. TeleGeography's Submarine Cable Map lists 10 cables in service landing in both Hong Kong and Singapore. It lists 8 each for Hong Kong and Japan, and for Singapore and Japan.
They measure different networks at different times. Microsoft probes its own backbone between its cloud regions every minute and publishes the 30-day median. WonderNetwork pings between its own servers over the public internet.
Microsoft's Japan East region covers Tokyo and Saitama, not one building. Neither path is the one your server will use.
Both are honest public numbers with dates and methods. A server at any host, Copperstrait included, will have its own figure. We publish no latency or speed figures of our own: we have not measured them. Test from where your users are once the server is yours.
Every round trip repeats. A new HTTPS connection needs a TCP handshake (RFC 9293) and a TLS handshake (RFC 8446) before the first request. With TLS 1.3, that is at least three round trips before the first byte comes back.
At Microsoft's 36 ms between Singapore and Hong Kong, three round trips take 108 ms. At 72 ms between Singapore and Tokyo, they take 216 ms. A database replica that waits for each commit pays one round trip per write.
Cross-hub latency rarely matters for a website, but it decides where a database primary or a game server should sit. Players are covered on where to host a game server for players in Asia.
It depends on the side of Asia. Singapore leads to the south and west, Tokyo to the north and east, and Hong Kong sits between them. In Microsoft's medians, Singapore is 8 ms from Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo 29 ms from Seoul. Hong Kong is 39 ms from Seoul and 47 ms from Jakarta.
The full audience map is on the best server location for users across Asia. Pairs are compared on Hong Kong or Singapore and Singapore or Tokyo. Round trips from Europe are on the ping from Europe to servers in Asia.
From where your users are, over several hours. A single ping from your laptop says little. Run a long ping and a path report, and repeat at busy times.
In Copperstrait's survey of 33 hosts selling bare metal in Asia on 2 November 2026, 26 sell in Singapore, 22 in Japan and 20 in Hong Kong. Ask any of them for a test address before you buy. Copperstrait sells all three cities at one price: Strait 16 $143.25, Strait 32 $356.25, Strait 32F $828.68, per 30 days. Details are on how much a Copperstrait server costs.
# 30 pings, then the summary line (min/avg/max)
ping -c 30 203.0.113.10
# hop-by-hop report over 100 cycles (install mtr first)
mtr --report --report-wide --report-cycles 100 203.0.113.1016 cores · 64 GB
$143.25
$128.92 / month
$386.77 for 3 months
$114.60 / month
$687.60 for 6 months
$100.28 / month
$1,203.30 for 1 year
3 months $386.77 (−10%)6 months $687.60 (−20%)1 year $1,203.30 (−30%)
Best value
32 cores · 384 GB
$356.25
$320.62 / month
$961.87 for 3 months
$285 / month
$1,710 for 6 months
$249.38 / month
$2,992.50 for 1 year
3 months $961.87 (−10%)6 months $1,710 (−20%)1 year $2,992.50 (−30%)
32 cores · 384 GB
$828.68
$745.81 / month
$2,237.43 for 3 months
$662.94 / month
$3,977.66 for 6 months
$580.08 / month
$6,960.91 for 1 year
3 months $2,237.43 (−10%)6 months $3,977.66 (−20%)1 year $6,960.91 (−30%)
In every plan: Same price in every city · RAID 1 · Dedicated IPv4 · No logs · No KYC · No setup fee
WonderNetwork's median was 66.8 ms over two weeks to 2 November 2026. Microsoft's median between its Singapore and Tokyo regions is 72 ms. The fibre floor for 5,311 km is 52.0 ms.
WonderNetwork's median was 59.4 ms, with hourly averages from 54.7 to 95.5 ms. Microsoft's median is 49 ms. The fibre floor for 2,876 km is 28.2 ms.
WonderNetwork's median was 30.2 ms and Microsoft's 36 ms. The fibre floor for 2,586 km is 25.3 ms.
No. We publish no latency or speed figures of our own: we have not measured them. Test from where your users are once the server is yours.
No. Every server has a 1 Gbit/s port with a monthly traffic allowance (Strait 16 20 TB, Strait 32 20 TB, Strait 32F 30 TB), one dedicated IPv4 address and an IPv6 /64; going past the allowance never triggers an automatic bill. No China-optimised route (CN2) is sold.
Hong Kong · Singapore · Tokyo from $143.25
Pick a port