Packet Pusher — your taps vs your line

How to play

1. 1Pick a mode: Sprint for a clean clicks-per-second run, Load-shedding for a line that goes dark on a schedule, or today's Daily Line, which is the same for everyone in South Africa.
2. 2Tap the big target — or focus it and press Space — as fast as you can. The clock starts on your first tap and every tap pushes one 1,500-byte packet down the fibre.
3. 3Watch the timer track. Amber blocks are scheduled outages: when the router goes off, stop. A packet pushed into a dark line is lost and costs you a delivered one.
4. 4When the line comes back, restart fast. The game times your recovery to the first packet that gets through.
5. 5Read the result: your packets per second, the bytes you pushed, and what your own line moved in the same time — from your last speed test on this site.

Why a packet, and why 1,500 bytes

Everything that crosses the internet is cut into packets, and on an ordinary Ethernet or fibre link the largest one is 1,500 bytes — the maximum transmission unit. A 100 Mbps line moves about 8,300 of them every second; a fast thumb manages ten. That gap, not the thumb, is the point of the game: bandwidth is a rate of packets, and a number like “100 Mbps” stops being abstract once you have tried to push them by hand.

The comparison card uses your last download figure from the speed test on this site, stored only in your browser. Without one it shows three typical lines. What speed do you actually need? →

Load-shedding and your router

In the load-shedding modes the fibre stays lit — it is the router that loses power, exactly as it does at home. Fibre network operators keep their exchanges and street cabinets on backup power; the equipment that goes dark during a slot is usually the ONT and router on your wall. Packets sent into a dark line are lost and have to be resent, which is why every drop costs you a delivered packet here.

A small UPS on the router is the cheap fix, and how long it lasts is simple arithmetic. Keeping your internet on through load-shedding →

Frequently asked questions

Is Packet Pusher a click speed (CPS) test?

Yes, at heart. Sprint mode is a standard clicks-per-second test: tap or press Space as fast as you can for 5, 10 or 30 seconds and the game reports your rate. The twist is the scale it puts that number on. Each tap is treated as one 1,500-byte packet, the largest an ordinary Ethernet frame carries, so the result is shown next to how many packets your own internet connection moved in the same time.

Why does each tap count as 1,500 bytes?

1,500 bytes is the Maximum Transmission Unit of standard Ethernet, and almost every packet that crosses the public internet is that size or smaller. A 100 Mbps line moves about 8,300 of them every second; a gigabit line about 83,000. Turning taps into packets is what lets the game compare a human rate with a line rate in the same units.

What is a good taps-per-second score?

Most people manage 5 to 7 taps a second with one finger and 9 to 12 with two thumbs, which the game labels LTE, Fibre and Gigabit. Above 12 a second is rare and labelled Backbone. Runs with suspiciously identical intervals are flagged as a likely autoclicker and are not saved as a best.

How does the load-shedding mode work?

The line goes dark on a schedule of two or three outages, shown on the timer bar before you start, just as a real load-shedding schedule is published in advance. Any packet you push while the router is off is lost and costs you one delivered packet, because in real networking a lost packet has to be sent again. The game also times how quickly you resume once the line returns. In practice fibre in the street usually stays powered during load-shedding; it is the router and fibre box in your house that go dark, which is why a small UPS is the usual fix.

Is the Daily Line the same for everyone?

Yes. The daily outage schedule is generated from the date in South African Standard Time, so everyone in the country plays the same line from midnight to midnight, and par is calculated from that schedule at five packets per live second. Your first completed run of the day is the official one; later runs that day are practice.

Where does the 'your line' figure come from?

From the last speed test you ran on this site, which is stored only in your browser. The game multiplies your measured download speed by the run length and divides by 1,500 bytes per packet. If you have not run a test yet, it shows what 10, 100 and 1,000 Mbps lines would have moved instead. Nothing is sent to a server.