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Define throughput and latency

Short answer

Throughput is the actual successful data rate (bits/s) delivered, lower than bandwidth due to overhead and congestion. Latency is the total delay (propagation + transmission + queuing + processing) for a message to reach its destination.

Define throughput and latency.

Throughput is the actual number of bits per second that pass through a network or channel successfully. It is less than the bandwidth (capacity) because of delays, congestion, errors and overhead. Example: a link of 10 Mbps with 8 Mbps of useful data delivered has a throughput of 8 Mbps.

Latency (delay) is the total time taken by a message to travel from the source to the destination.

Latency = propagation time + transmission time + queuing time + processing time

  • Propagation time = distance / propagation speed
  • Transmission time = message size / bandwidth

Example: a 1000-byte packet on a 1 Mbps link has a transmission time of 8000/10⁶ = 8 ms.

✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)

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