System Design · Junior · Question 13 of 75
How does latency differ from bandwidth?
- ✓Correct answer: Latency is the time to a response, bandwidth is the data volume per unit of time
- 2Latency is the data volume per second, bandwidth is the time to first byte
- 3They're synonyms for the user's internet speed
Explanation
Even on a wide channel, each extra request costs a round trip to the server and back (RTT). Mobile networks have high latency, so fewer requests, CDNs, prefetching and HTTP/2 matter. For large files, bandwidth matters more.