nanog mailing list archives

Re: Long haul latency calculation?


From: David Charlap <David.Charlap () marconi com>
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 16:51:33 -0400


Christopher Wolff wrote:

I was wondering if there is a benchmark for long-haul circuit
latency...  For example if I had a T1 circuit with 2900 miles
between the two end-points (and assuming the provider is best case
scenario) can I do something like (miles*latencyfactor) = 5 ms for
2900 miles?

Speed of light is apprxoximately 2.998e+8 m/s (or 299,800,000 m/s),
which is approximately 186,287 miles/sec.

2900 mi / 186,287 mi/s = 0.01557s = 15.57ms.  This is the absolute
minimum latency you can possibly get over that distance.  Switching
performance and congestion will make your actual latency somewhat
larger.

-- David


Current thread: