Causes of Delay
Any goals regarding delay must take into account fundamental physics. Despite science fiction stories that say differently, any signal experiences a propagation delay resulting from the finite speed of light, which is about 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second). Network designers can also remember 1 nanosecond per foot. These values are for light traveling in a vacuum. A signal in a cable or optical fiber travels approximately two-thirds the speed of light in a vacuum.