Which statement differentiates latency and throughput?

• A. Latency is the time to traverse a path; throughput is the amount of data successfully delivered per time unit.
• B. Latency is the data rate; throughput is the time delay.
• C. Latency is the maximum network speed; throughput is minimum speed.
• D. Latency is jitter; throughput is error rate.

Answer: (D)

Latency is the time a packet takes to travel from source to destination, including propagation, queuing, processing, and transmission delays. Throughput is the amount of data successfully delivered over the network per unit time, i.e., the data rate. The key distinction is that latency measures delay of a single transmission, while throughput measures how much data gets through over time. Jitter refers to the variation in latency, and error rate refers to how often bits are corrupted or lost; both are separate concepts from the basic definitions of latency and throughput. So the correct differentiation is that latency is the time to traverse a path, and throughput is the data rate.