Latency in optical fiber systems
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Latency in optical fiber systems
Latency is a time delay between a stimulation and its response. It is caused by velocity limitations in a physical system. In simplest terms, latency is the time it takes for a signal to travel (or propagate) from point A to point B. In telecommunications, latency describes the time delay of a packet traveling through a network or the delay imposed on a signal traveling in a transmission medium such as a copper cable, optical fiber waveguide, or even free space; in radio transmissions it is the time it takes a radio signal to propagate through free space from the transmitter to the receiver; for electrical transmissions, it is the time the electrical signal takes to propagate through a metallic or conductive medium; and, in optical transmission, latency describes the time required for the optical signal to propagate through free space or in the core of an optical fiber.
