Yes, latency is very important. We found that there is a strong negative correlation between bandwidth and latency (faster connections tend to have lower response times). That's why we decided to focus on speed first. We are planning to add ping testing as well.
Really? I've been using it in FF on GNU/Linux since it was announced 2013-04 without any issue (other than switching to a different tab seems to throttle connections). I've got the latest FF 31. What version/OS/graphics do you have?
I would expect the very slowest connections to be T1s, which have excellent latency (and reliability) but almost no bandwidth. Then DSL/cable connections, with bandwidth between 5 and 100Mbps. Anything 100Mbps or greater would have fiber, with the correspondingly low latency again.
Having stayed at a couple of the reviewed hotels in Brazil that get a good rating, you would think everything was fine.
But latency is a HUGE problem in Brazil[1], and in probably any country that's far removed from the major backbones.
Yes, I can watch Youtube just fine in Brazil but I can't tell you the number of times that Skype video or other highly interactive apps wouldn't start or conk out because of poor latency.
The public has no comprehension of latency, but it's really important that this gets factored in somehow, especially for places like Brazil that generally have poor latency.
Brazil is far from the economic center of the Internet. South Korea, a country with 1/4 of the population of Brazil, is probably better connected because it's on the route to Japan, China, etc.
Brazil's poor latency may be partly explained by the fact that a lot of their connections have to go through the US and Canada:
"The shape of the Internet varies considerably when examining individual regions. In Europe, the majority of cross-border capacity is between European countries, while in Latin America and the Caribbean the majority of international capacity is connected to the U.S. & Canada."[1]
"More than 80% of Africa's and Latin America's international Internet bandwidth connect to cities outside their regions. In the case of Latin America, 60% of the region's interregional capacity connects to a single city, Miami."[2]
Also, because of Brazil's distance from the economic center of the Internet, they probably don't get the advantage of unpaid peering relationships.
Only for packet loss testing. If you don't have Java installed in your browser, you get "Pingtest.net requires Java for packet loss testing, but it does not appear to be installed in your browser. Click here for assistance." The ping and jitter tests still work without Java.
