Does anyone know if there is a way with RouterOS to get it to report latency in microseconds instead of milliseconds and if it can report not just round trip latency but one way latency even breaking down the latency each way? Assumptions are that without adjustments the latency reported in RouterOS via Winbox ping or other tools such as the CLI ping are default reported in round trip latency. That is becoming not precise enough with some of the projects I'm working on in comparing apples to apples and explaining to others why fiber as existing is often much much slower than a purpose built point to point wireless network if one medium has to be chosen over the other when costs cannot justify using both.

How exactly is one network device supposed to know what part of round-trip delay is which direction ... without help of the other end of the link?

Surely it can be done, NTP and IEEE1588v2 (PTP) are trying to get there but those are purpose-designed protocols with active participation of both sides... and the later requires support of all intermediate boxes to reach its precission of sub-microsecond. Without support of intermediate boxes, best that can be done is fraction of millisecond (that's what NTP can reach).

When both parties support type 13 ICMP echo request it can be done. But as mkx pointed out clocks of both parties should be in good sync.

See also:
http://www.networksorcery.com/enp/proto ... /msg13.htm

Just to summarize after these helpful responses. The built in Winbox tools do not support ICMP type 13 which could be used to track latency both ways but accurate synced clocks would be required. Other equipment on each end supporting tools that work with ICMP type 13 as long as the networks involved are not blocking those packets could gather that information. Also, there is not a feature at least yet with the built in Mikrotik ping tools using ICMP type 8 and type 0 where microseconds could be reported instead of milliseconds.

Maybe you would like to suggest an improved ping client and server to Mikrotik as a feature request. Like here:

viewtopic.php?t=20448
viewtopic.php?t=110083

Feature request for improved time sync are already there. E.g.:

viewtopic.php?t=84969
viewtopic.php?t=28141
viewtopic.php?t=85960
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45934&p=726235#p726235
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45934&p=709727&hilit=1588#p709727

A long long time ago I added my support for the fact that RouterOS needs a database client. I think at that time suggestions were for MySQL but frankly any of a number of open source database servers would work. That didn't happen yet and is a much higher priority than a new ping tool in my opinion. Does RouterOS have by chance a SDK or software developers kit or are we at the mercy of their whims on this kind of stuff?

Super old post... but ran across it doing another search. PerfSonar and it's One Way Ping will give you that info.

https://software.internet2.edu/owamp/
https://github.com/perfsonar
https://github.com/perfsonar/owamp
https://www.perfsonar.net/