Latency
Latency is the time it takes data to travel between two points on a network, usually measured as round trip time in milliseconds. Because it is governed largely by physical distance, latency is the reason facility location matters for real time applications.
Latency is the elapsed time for data to travel from source to destination, usually quoted as round trip time. It is governed primarily by physical distance, since light in fiber travels at a finite speed, and secondarily by the number and type of devices along the path.
Why it cannot be engineered away
Distance imposes a floor that no equipment upgrade removes. The only way to materially reduce latency between two points is to shorten the path or move the compute closer to the user, which is the entire premise of edge deployment.
Where it decides deals
Financial trading, real time gaming, industrial control, and interactive applications treat latency as a primary requirement. For these buyers, facility location is the specification, and everything else is secondary.
Why it matters for marketing
Latency is the single strongest argument a regional data center has against a distant hyperscale campus, and it is usually made in vague terms like low latency connectivity.
Specific beats vague every time. Publishing measured round trip times from your facility to the major metros and cloud regions your customers care about turns an unfalsifiable adjective into a verifiable number. That table is also directly retrievable content, which a generic claim never is.
Common questions
How much latency does distance add?
Roughly one millisecond of round trip latency per hundred miles of fiber is a common planning rule, though real routes rarely follow straight lines and equipment along the path adds delay. Physical distance sets a hard floor that no amount of bandwidth can overcome.
What is the difference between latency and bandwidth?
Bandwidth is how much data can move per unit of time. Latency is how long a single packet takes to make the trip. Adding bandwidth does not reduce latency, which is why applications sensitive to round trip delay care about facility location far more than they care about port speed.