Some Users Find the Speed of Light Too Slow for Their Networks

Even light-speed fiber-optic networks experience delays that can prove costly for time sensitive transactions. To determine how to mitigate latency, MIT researchers investigated how network delays affect performance. Their findings revealed that using an intermediate node can help shave time off the communications between two nodes. Financial firms in particular want to minimize latency, even if by tens of milliseconds. Because neither the speed of light nor the distance between two points changes, network administrators must determine how to deal with light-speed latency.