Network delay is a design and performance characteristic of a
telecommunications network. It specifies the
latency for a bit of data to travel across the network from one
communication endpoint
A communication endpoint is a type of Node (networking), communication network node. It is an interface exposed by a communicating party or by a communication channel. An example of the latter type of a communication endpoint is a publish–subscr ...
to another.
It is typically measured in multiples or fractions of a second. Delay may differ slightly, depending on the location of the specific pair of communicating endpoints. Engineers usually report both the maximum and average delay, and they divide the delay into several parts:
*
Processing delay time it takes a router to process the packet header
*
Queuing delay time the packet spends in routing queues
*
Transmission delay time it takes to push the packet's bits onto the link
*
Propagation delay time for a signal to propagate through the media
A certain minimum level of delay is experienced by signals due to the time it takes to
transmit a packet serially through a
link. This delay is extended by more variable levels of delay due to
network congestion.
IP network delays can range from a few milliseconds to several hundred milliseconds.
See also
*
Age of Information
*
End-to-end delay
End-to-end delay or one-way delay (OWD) refers to the time taken for a Packet (information technology), packet to be transmitted across a computer network, network from source to destination. It is a common term in IP network monitoring, and differ ...
*
Lag (video games)
*
Latency (engineering)
Latency, from a general point of view, is a time delay between the Causality, cause and the effect of some physical change in the system being observed. Lag (video games), Lag, as it is known in Gaming culture, gaming circles, refers to the late ...
*
Minimum-Pairs Protocol
*
Round-trip delay
References
External links
*
*
Computer networking
{{compu-network-stub