Bandwidth vs Latency

Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data a connection can carry per second, measured in Mbps or Gbps; think of it as how wide a road is. Latency is the time a piece of data takes to travel from one point to another and back, measured in milliseconds (ms); think of it as how long the journey takes.

High bandwidth matters for downloading large files and streaming 4K video. Low latency matters for video calls, online gaming and trading. The ping command measures latency, and jitter is how much the latency varies. Throughput is the actual speed achieved, which is usually lower than the bandwidth.