Why Latency Matters for Fast File Delivery

Latency is a term that is used to define the amount of time it takes to send a data packet from one source to another destination. High latency will slow down the transfer, which will affect the encoding, transmission and decoding, which are all elements in the process of sending the file. Delivery protocols like FTP are more susceptible to latency because it requires acknowledgment of the file trying to be transferred before the next file can be sent. You can only imagine the time consumption involved in this process. This is where TCP protocol comes in. This is multi-threaded, so there is an allowance of multiple data packets to be transferred at once. Another popular delivery protocol is UDP — this basically sends a file and forgets about it, so there is no need for acknowledgment; this too can speed up the process of transferring files as well. There is a way to measure latency on a connection. There are network tools, such as ping tests and trace outs, which are commonly used for latency measurements. What it does is determine the amount of time it takes for a packet to travel from one source to a destination and back. There are also other ways you can measure latency, such as with Speedtest.net, which will test the latency on your net connection. It runs a test on hundreds of test servers and will determine the bandwidth and latency against a local a non-local server (such as from Florida to Germany). With high speed internet, like broadband and DSL, latencies are lower — around 100 milliseconds and 25 milliseconds. On satellite internet, latency can be around 500 milliseconds or higher. If you’re looking to decrease latency, try switching to a better internet provider. It’s a good idea to check your connections latency, so that you can determine if you’re internet transfers are going through as quickly as you’d like.