# Best possible latency for video chat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\ **Created:** [December 7, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/best-possible-latency-for-video-chat/37293 "2011-12-07T11:37:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jon\_Morrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Jon\_Morrow](https://community.wowza.com/u/Jon_Morrow)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/best-possible-latency-for-video-chat/37293/1 "2011-12-07T11:37:20Z")
Can anyone give me a ballpark figure for the best possible latency for video chat? I’m interested in having Skype-like quickness. Is that possible? Cost is not really important, so I’d be willing to invest in a CDN, build my own server network, whatever to get the latency as low as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Good](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.wowza.com/charlie_good/32/383_2.png) [@Charlie\_Good](https://community.wowza.com/u/Charlie_Good)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 7:07pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/best-possible-latency-for-video-chat/37293/2 "2011-12-07T19:07:06Z")
You should be able to get it down to about 250-500ms. [https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-set-up-low-latency-applications-in-wowza-streaming-engine-for-rtmp-streaming](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-set-up-low-latency-applications-in-wowza-streaming-engine-for-rtmp-streaming) Charlie ---
**Author:** ![Randall\_Auriemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@Randall\_Auriemma](https://community.wowza.com/u/Randall_Auriemma)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 10:32am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/best-possible-latency-for-video-chat/37293/3 "2011-12-08T10:32:20Z")
I’m not sure that a CDN comes into play when doing video chat. A CDN is for replicating content and allowing your number of viewers to scale up. With VideoChat you are not really replicating content. If you need to add multiple servers to scale up your video chat service, you would need to do some custom programming to ensure users involved in a single chat are all directed to the same server. All other things being equal, using a CDN will add the latency that exists between you and the CDN. Whereas if all your edge servers were on the same LAN as your origin, you would not have that extra latency. ---
**Author:** ![Jon\_Morrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Jon\_Morrow](https://community.wowza.com/u/Jon_Morrow)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 12:46pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/best-possible-latency-for-video-chat/37293/4 "2011-12-08T12:46:16Z")
Excellent, thanks for the answer. Does a CDN offer significant improvements for latency with a global audience, or does all of the pushing between servers actually increase latency? ---
**Author:** ![Jon\_Morrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Jon\_Morrow](https://community.wowza.com/u/Jon_Morrow)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 1:40pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/best-possible-latency-for-video-chat/37293/5 "2011-12-08T13:40:22Z")
Well, in this case, it’s more of a web conferencing app. So, I will have a few people talking and hundreds or even thousands watching. Mostly from English speaking countries, but if my servers are located in the US, I’m worried about latency for people in the UK and especially Australia. That’s what got me thinking about a CDN. But you think it would do more harm than good?