What’s the Difference Between Throughput and Latency?
Latency and throughput are two metrics that measure the performance of a computer network. Latency is the delay in network communication. It shows the time that data takes to transfer across the network. Networks with a longer delay or lag have high latency, while those with fast response times have lower latency. In contrast, throughput refers to the average volume of data that can actually pass through the network over a specific time. It indicates the number of data packets that arrive at their destinations successfully and the data packet loss.
Why are throughput and latency important?
You can determine network speed by looking at how quickly a network can transfer data packets to their destinations. This speed is the result of network performance factors like latency and throughput.
Latency determines the delay that a user experiences when they send or receive data from the network. Throughput determines the number of users that can access the network at the same time.
A network with low throughput and high latency struggles to send and process high data volume, which results in congestion and poor application performance. In contrast, a network with high throughput and low latency is responsive and efficient. Users experience improved performance and increased satisfaction.
High-performing networks directly impact revenue generation and operational efficiency. In addition, certain use cases—like real-time streaming, Internet of Things (IoT) data analytics, and high-performance computing—require certain network performance thresholds to operate optimally.
Key differences: network latency vs. throughput
Although latency and throughput both contribute to a reliable and fast network, they are not the same. These network metrics focus on distinct statistics and are different from each other.
How to measure
You can measure network latency by measuring ping time. This process is where you transmit a small data packet and receive confirmation that it arrived.
Most operating systems support a ping command which does this from your device. The round-trip-time (RTT) displays in milliseconds and gives you an idea of how long it takes for your network to transfer data.
You can measure throughput either with network testing tools or manually. If you wanted to test throughput manually, you would send a file and divide the file size by the time it takes to arrive. However, latency and bandwidth impact throughput. Because of this, many people use network testing tools, as the tools report throughput alongside other factors like bandwidth and latency.
Unit of measurement
You measure latency in milliseconds. If you have a low number of milliseconds, your network is only experiencing a small delay. The higher the number in milliseconds, the slower the network is performing.
Originally, you would measure network throughput in bits per second (bps). But, as data transmission technologies have improved, you can now achieve much higher values. Because of this, you can measure throughput in kilobytes per second (KBps), megabytes per second (MBps), and even gigabytes per second (GBps). One byte is equal to eight bits.
