The packet delivery time or latency is the time from the first bit leaves the transmitter until the last is received. In the case of a physical link, it can be expressed as:
- Packet delivery time = Transmission time + Propagation delay
In case of a network connection mediated by several physical links and forwarding nodes, the network delivery time depends on the sum of the delivery times of each link, and also on the packet queueing time (which is varying and depends on the traffic load from other connections) and the processing delay of the forwarding nodes. In wide-area networks, the delivery time is in the order of milliseconds.
Read more about this topic: Transmission Time
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)