1.1.1.1: Fast, privacy-first consumer DNS service

And look at these ping times:

                                   CloudFlare       Google DNS       Quad9            OpenDNS          
  NewYork                            2 msec           1 msec           2 msec           19 msec          
  Toronto                            2 msec           28 msec          17 msec          27 msec          
  Atlanta                            1 msec           2 msec           1 msec           19 msec          
  Dallas                             1 msec           9 msec           1 msec           7 msec           
  San Francisco                      3 msec           21 msec          15 msec          20 msec          
  London                             1 msec           12 msec          1 msec           14 msec          
  Amsterdam                          2 msec           6 msec           1 msec           6 msec           
  Frankfurt                          1 msec           9 msec           2 msec           9 msec           
  Tokyo                              2 msec           2 msec           81 msec          77 msec          
  Singapore                          2 msec           2 msec           1 msec           189 msec         
  Sydney                             1 msec           130 msec         1 msec           165 msec

Very impressive CloudFlare.

Where are you testing from? I'm going to guess: a datacenter. Residential customers won't see anything this fast. I'm in a small town in Kansas, connected by 1 Gbit ATT fiber. I'm getting ~26ms to 1.1.1.1 and ~19ms to my private DNS resolver that I host in a datacenter in Dallas. Google DNS comes in around 19ms.

I suspect that Cloudflare and Google DNS both have POPs in Dallas, which accounts for the similar numbers to my private resolver. My point is, low latencies to datacenter-located resolver clients is great but the advantage is reduced when consumer internet users have to go across their ISP's long private fiber hauls to get to a POP. Once you're at the exchange point, it doesn't really matter which provider you choose. Go with the one with the least censorship, best security, and most privacy. For me, that's the one I run myself.

Side note: I wish AT&T was better about peering outside of their major transit POPs and better about building smaller POPs in regional hubs. For me, that would be Kansas City. Tons of big ISPs and content providers peer in KC but AT&T skips them all and appears to backhaul all Kansas traffic to DFW before doing any peering.

Comcast in Northern NJ USA about 45 MI from NYC

  $ ping 1.1.1.1
  PING 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=10.8 ms
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=11.3 ms
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=10.7 ms
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=10.9 ms

  PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=60 time=10.7 ms
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=60 time=11.3 ms
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=60 time=11.1 ms
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=60 time=10.5 ms

From a residential connection in New Zealand:

    $ ping 1.1.1.1

    Pinging 1.1.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
    Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=60
    Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=60
    Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=60
    Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=60

    $ ping 8.8.8.8

    Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
    Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=60
    Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=60
    Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=60
    Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=60

Seems that 1.1.1.1 is even faster than my local ISP's primary DNS:

    $ ping 202.180.64.10

    Pinging 202.180.64.10 with 32 bytes of data:
    Reply from 202.180.64.10: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=61
    Reply from 202.180.64.10: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=61
    Reply from 202.180.64.10: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=61
    Reply from 202.180.64.10: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=61

Fastest Bigpipe residential connection available in the middle of Auckland:

  $ ping -c 4 1.1.1.1

  PING 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=29.0 ms
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=27.7 ms
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=30.5 ms
  64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=28.6 ms
  
  --- 1.1.1.1 ping statistics ---
  4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3004ms
  rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 27.731/28.993/30.573/1.028 ms

  $ ping -c 4 8.8.8.8

  PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=27.7 ms
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=55 time=30.7 ms
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=55 time=28.5 ms
  64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=55 time=30.6 ms

  --- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
  4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3005ms
  rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 27.772/29.409/30.710/1.280 ms

I'm starting to feel I should change ISPs...