Which term describes the time it takes for a packet to travel from source to destination on a network path?

• A. Bandwidth
• B. Jitter
• C. Latency
• D. Throughput

Answer: (C)

Latency is the time it takes for a packet to travel from source to destination across a network path. It includes several components: propagation delay (the time for a signal to traverse the physical distance), transmission delay (time to push the packet onto the link), processing delay (time routers take to examine the packet), and queuing delay (time waiting in buffers). Measured in milliseconds, latency reflects how responsive a network feels. This is different from bandwidth (the maximum data rate of a link) and throughput (the actual data rate achieved) as well as from jitter, which is the variation in latency between packets. A one-way latency of 20 ms means a packet takes about 20 milliseconds to reach the destination (RTT would be roughly double in a symmetric path).