What Is Latency? What Causes Latencies?

Latency is a concept that internet technology has brought with it.

Göknil Bağatarhan

In 1969, the United States created a project called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Authority Net) to provide military communication. This project basically enabled computers at military communication points to communicate with each other. In this way, even if a single communication point was attacked, the other points could communicate with each other. This system is also described as the first version of the internet used today.

After ARPANET, another system called NSFNET (National Science Foundation) was established in 1986 to enable universities to share their scientific work with each other. At the same time, commercial networks called Compuserve were also introduced. The TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) protocol was also developed to enable different computers to communicate with each other. Following the TCP/IP protocol, an extension called WWW (World Wide Web) was developed that allowed all published information to be collected on a single channel. Thanks to the WWW, it became possible to publish and access data in different structures such as text, images, audio, animation, and video.

This is how the modern internet has evolved, and over the years the amount of data stored on the internet has steadily increased. At the same time, servers and service providers have diversified and evolved.

In the world of internet usage and computing, any data is transferred from one device to another via the internet. Information can move from servers around the world to computers, and from computers back to servers. The time it takes for a data to be transferred can vary depending on the connection speed and bandwidth. There can be different latencies, ranging from IO latency between computers to network latency.

Even if it is not technically possible to completely eliminate these latencies, it is possible to reduce them to very low levels. The higher the latency, the slower the responsiveness of any website. Users are therefore forced to wait longer.

High latencies cause slowdowns in online services, video games, and streaming video.

What Is Latency?

Latency, which can also be described as the response speed of your Internet connection, is the process by which a data packet leaves the source, arrives at the destination and then returns. For instance, data is sent from a computer to a server in another city. When this data is sent, it is 12:00:00:00.000, and when it arrives at the server, it is 12:00:00:00.085. The difference of 85 milliseconds between these two time frames represents the latency in the internet connection.

What Is the Unit of Measure for Latency?

The common unit of measurement of latency is ping. Ping is also defined as a millisecond value. While a latency of 50-100 milliseconds is considered acceptable, a latency range of 0-50 milliseconds is considered good by global standards. The lower any latency range, the closer internet connections can process data in real time. The lower this range, the better the performance of video games and streaming videos, which are the most common complaints about latency.

What Is the Reason of Latency?

There are many different reasons why internet connections can lag. Some of the most common causes of these delays are:

Excessive network traffic congestion
Latency by type of Internet connection (wired or wireless connection)
Distance between computers or servers that will send and receive data
Contents of the websites attempted to be accessed

How to Reduce Latency?

Many methods can be used to reduce latency. Latency can be reduced by closing applications that use the internet in the background and unnecessary tabs.

If there is more than one piece of equipment (phone, computer, tablet, smart TV, etc.) connected to the internet modem, this can cause a significant reduction in internet speed. To avoid this, unused devices and equipment can be disconnected from the internet for a while.

Downloading files and data over the internet also increases latency. If the internet is used to download games, movies, TV series, or data over the internet, the speed of the internet connection may not be at the levels desired by the user. Users can avoid this by downloading files during periods when they are not actively using the internet.

A complete reset of the latency value is impossible due to the operating principle of data exchange. However, it is possible to reduce latency and increase the ability to process faster. The following can be done for this:

Increasing network speed
Optimizing network configuration
Reducing the distance between devices
Using the cache
Updating devices
Reducing network load

Increasing Network Speed

You can reduce latency by increasing the internet connection speed.

Optimizing Network Configuration

Selecting the network configuration from properly designed preferences can help reduce latency.

Reducing the Distance Between Devices

The closer the devices are to each other, the less distance needed to transfer data, and this reduces latency.

Using the Cache

Saving some of the data in the cache can increase the data transfer speed. This means that data can be retrieved from the cache faster and latency can be reduced.