What does latency measure in networking?

Latency in networking specifically measures the time it takes for a data packet to move from its source to its destination. This metric is crucial for understanding the performance of a network because lower latency is associated with faster communication, which enhances the user experience, especially in applications that require real-time interactions, such as video conferencing or online gaming.

Measuring latency involves assessing various components, including propagation delay, transmission delay, queuing delay, and processing delay. All these factors contribute to the overall time a packet takes to traverse the network, and understanding latency helps network engineers to optimize performance and troubleshoot issues effectively.

In contrast, the other options refer to different aspects of networking. For example, measuring the speed of data encryption pertains to security rather than data transmission speed, while the amount of data transferred focuses on bandwidth usage, and the number of connections relates to network capacity. Thus, these options do not accurately define latency.