Propagation Delay Calculator

Propagation delay is how long it takes a signal to travel over a network from its sender to its receiver. As computers send signals between one another, there are delays based on the distance between the two routers. The delay between a network that uses a satellite will take hundreds of milliseconds, as the signal has to travel from Earth to the satellite and back again. The delay between two computers within the same building will be much less due to the shorter distance, but the propagation speed may have a greater effect.

Propagation speed is usually close to the speed of light (2.998×108 m/s2.998×108 m/s) when a signal is traveling through the air, such as a wireless signal or a signal traveling to a satellite. However, if the signal propagates through a cable rather than air, the speed decreases. The type of dielectric material, or the insulating material within a cable, affects the speed of propagation due to the material's impedance. You can learn more about impedance by checking out our cable Impedance calculator.

The rate at which the signal propagates through that medium is known as the velocity factor. In general, a signal traveling through a cable is slowed down by as much as 2/3, as the dielectric materials in cables usually have velocity factors between 0.65 and 0.9.

Now that you know what propagation delay is, let's discuss the components of the propagation delay formula and how to calculate propagation delay.

Propagation delay formula

The distance between routers is the distance between the sending and receiving router.

The propagation speed is equal to the speed of light×velocity factorspeed of light×velocity factor.

The speed of light is 2.998×108 m/s2.998×108 m/s, and the velocity factor ranges between 0 and 1 depending on the medium through which the signal is propagating. This calculator assumes propagation through air, which has a velocity factor of 1 and, therefore, has a propagation speed equal to the speed of light.

If you are calculating the propagation delay for a signal sent through a cable, you may want to look at the list of dielectric materials of the calculator. Here, you can find values for the velocity factors of several dielectric materials, or you can input a custom value for the velocity factor of your cable or material. If you are unsure of the type of cable you have, the best conservative estimate is to assume a standard (cat 5 and cat 6) ethernet cable made of polyethylene (PE), which has a velocity factor of 0.65.

Say you are living in New York and wirelessly send an image file to a friend living in London, which is a distance of 5,567 km.

The propagation delay is 18.57 ms.

Let's look at a second example using the propagation delay formula where a signal is sent via an ethernet cable.

Your computer is connected to a router by a polyethylene ethernet cable that is 3 m long. The calculator tells us that the polyethylene ethernet cable has a velocity factor of 0.65.

We now need to calculate the propagation delay:

The propagation delay is only 15.4 nanoseconds — not too shabby!

Why would I need to use a propagation delay calculator?

In the financial industry, time is money, and even a millisecond can affect the bottom line when the exact time a stock offer is made can affect whether it is accepted. In general, propagation delay matters most when sets of computers need to coordinate with one another.

In the case of most of us at home, propagation delay may affect the lag in playing a game with friends, attending a Zoom meeting, or just add to the never-ending time you spend on emails. While a delay may not cost you millions of dollars, it can be a bit annoying.

There is not much you can do about propagation delay, as the distance is the primary contributing factor, but it is still essential to understand it. Other technology terms you may hear related to sending data across networks (such as latency, lag, ping, and round-trip time) all incorporate the propagation delay. That also considers additional factors such as the packet size or the time it takes for the signal to return to the original sender.