Network delay
Network delay is a design and performance characteristic of a telecommunications network. It specifies the latency for a bit of data to travel across the network from one communication endpoint to another. It is typically measured in multiples or fractions of a second. Delay may differ slightly, depending on the location of the specific pair of communicating endpoints. Engineers usually report both the maximum and average delay, and they divide the delay into several parts:
 Processing delay time it takes a router to process the packet header
 Queuing delay time the packet spends in routing queues
 Transmission delay time it takes to push the packet's bits onto the link
 Propagation delay time for a signal to propagate through the media

A certain minimum level of delay is experienced by signals due to the time it takes to transmit a packet serially through a link. This delay is extended by more variable levels of delay due to network congestion. IP network delays can range from a few milliseconds to several hundred milliseconds. See also
 Age of Information
 End-to-end delay
 Lag (video games)
 Latency (engineering)
 Minimum-Pairs Protocol
 Round-trip delay

References

 
 

Computer networking