• Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    There are “Internet cables” across the ocean; there are also “Internet satellites” orbiting the earth. The cables are good because they provide low latency. But that is not the most desired feature of all Internet packets; sometimes, bandwidth or range are higher priority than latency, and in those cases, a wireless transport layer may be preferred.

      • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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        13 minutes ago

        Latency, also known as ping time by gamers, is the amount of time it takes for a signal to get from one computer to the other. Bandwidth is the total number of signals that can be sent over a given amount of time.

        Eg: a bus has more bandwidth than a Kawasaki motorcycle, but also more latency (from a people moving perspective).