More edge locations does not mean faster

More edge locations does not mean faster
A Lisbon SaaS dashboard migrated to a provider boasting 300+ points of presence, expecting magic. p95 in São Paulo actually rose from 140ms to 190ms.
The myth: more PoPs equals lower latency everywhere. The reality: a sprawling map with thin peering routes you through a congested transit hop. Their old provider had 90 PoPs but direct peering with the Brazilian exchange.
What we did: we stopped counting dots on a marketing map and pulled real RUM by region. We moved back, then added an origin shield in Frankfurt so cache misses didn't crater.
Result: São Paulo p95 dropped to 88ms, Madrid to 19ms. The fancy 300-PoP network never touched the right exchange.
Measure peering, not pin count.
The number that mattered: 88ms São Paulo p95, down from 190.