Google Cloud Digital Leader 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The term that best describes the time taken for a signal to travel from a sender to a receiver is propagation delay. This involves the actual time it takes for data to move across a medium (like a cable or airwaves), which can be influenced by factors such as the distance between the sender and receiver and the speed of the signal through that medium.

Latency, while related to the concept, encompasses the total delay in a communication system. It includes not just the propagation delay, but also transmission time, which refers to the time required to push all the packet's bits into the wire, and processing time, which involves the time taken for routers and switches to process the data. The distinction is important because propagation delay specifically focuses on just the travel time aspect, while latency is a broader term that includes additional factors affecting the overall delay experienced in a network.

Recognizing this distinction can help in understanding network performance and the factors that contribute to overall communication delays in various systems.