TOPIC NETWORKING
Latency vs Bandwidth why 'fast' means two things
IN 10 SECONDS
Bandwidth is the width of the pipe (how many bytes per second); latency is the speed of light (how long a single round-trip takes). You can't outrun the speed of light.
GOTCHA Increasing bandwidth from 100Mbps to 1Gbps won't speed up small API queries if latency remains at 200ms.
HOW TIME VS SPACE FLOWS
01 Request client triggers a request. A physical signal travels down cables to the server.
02 Latency round-trip time (RTT, e.g., 100ms) limits how fast a single session can get a reply.
03 Bandwidth once stream starts, host pushes massive data down the connection.
04 Throughput is governed by both (TCP Window Size / RTT). High latency caps transfer speeds.
POKE IT YOURSELF
ping -c 10 8.8.8.8 — check round-trip latency
iperf3 -c speedtest.server — test network bandwidth limits
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