la·ten·cynoun
pl. la·ten·cies
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Delay.The total time required for a signal to travel from one point to another, generally from a transmitter through a network to a receiver. Propagation delay, a fundamental factor in latency, is dependent on the nature of the electromagnetic signal, as not all signals travel through a medium at the same speed. Propagation delay also is influenced by the distance between the two points, the density of the medium, the presence of passive devices such as loading coils that might increase the impedance of the medium. Latency also is affected by any processing time associated with devices such as repeaters, transponders, concentrators, multiplexers, switches, and routers as they variously transmit and retransmit, amplify and reamplify, time and retime, shape and reshape, code and decode, compress and decompress, encrypt and decrypt, and otherwise process signals and manipulate data. Latency also is affected by any time that data packets spend in queues due to issues of network congestion and any time required to retransmit packets errored or lost in transit. See also jitter.
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(1) Essentially any delay or lapse in time. In general, it is the time between initiating a request in the computer and receiving the answer. Data latency may refer to the time between a query and the results arriving at the screen or the time between initiating a transaction that modifies one or more databases and its completion. Disk latency is the time it takes for the selected sector to be positioned under the read/write head. Channel latency is the time it takes for a computer channel to become unoccupied in order to transfer data. Network latency is the delay introduced when a packet is momentarily stored, analyzed and then forwarded.
(2) With malicious software, latency is the period between infection and the first obvious damage to the host system. Many viruses or logic bombs written by amateurs have a short latency and are therefore relatively easy to detect; however, more vicious malware can lie dormant or replicate to many other hosts and then wreak havoc unexpectedly. See logic bomb and virus.
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n.
pl. latencies
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