Latency
Delay between two points, measured one-way or round-trip, set by distance, hops and queues, and measured along a path rather than a link.
Definitions only — a term explained here is not a service we sell.
Latency is the delay between two points, shaped by distance, hops and queues. It is measured one-way or round-trip, and each figure should say which. Bandwidth is the pipe, not the trip, so a fast link can still feel slow.
What the number includes
Propagation sets the floor: light in fiber travels about 200 km per millisecond, so a 10,000 km path has a one-way floor near 50 ms. Queueing is the variable part: a link at 90% utilization adds delay and jitter.
Where the delay comes from
40 ms
| Value | What it means |
|---|---|
| 1 ms | Same metro |
| 10 ms | Regional path |
| 40 ms | Regional path |
| 120 ms | Intercontinental path |
| 300 ms | Queues or a long path |
| 800 ms | Queues or a long path |
Text description
The ruler plots round-trip time on a scale. Short metro paths sit low, regional and intercontinental paths in the middle, and queues or long paths high.
What to check
An average hides the tail, so ask for percentiles, the measurement method and the measurement points. One figure describes one path at one time. ICMP ping measures the network, not the application: each TCP handshake, TLS negotiation and database query adds round trips. Measure from the user's network at peak with the Fiber latency calculator.