Access Time

Access time is the time delay or latency between a request to an electronic system, and the access being completed or the requested data returned.

  • In a telecommunications system, access time is the delay between the start of an access attempt and successful access. Access time values are measured only on access attempts that result in successful access.
  • In a computer, it is the time interval between the instant at which an instruction control unit initiates a call for data or a request to store data, and the instant at which delivery of the data is completed or the storage is started.


Famous quotes containing the words access and/or time:

    “Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
    —Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)

    “There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)