8 Most Common Latency Issues & How to Troubleshoot Them

Whether you’re a business running cloud-based applications, an educational institution facilitating virtual learning or a remote worker, latency issues can be a major roadblock.

At a time when businesses and remote workers depend heavily on cloud services, real-time communication tools like Zoom, and collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams, even a slight delay in network performance can disrupt workflows, cause frustration, and hinder overall efficiency. For organizations and users alike, these network latency issues often arise unexpectedly, creating challenges that directly impact day-to-day operations.

Most of the time, you'll start to feel the negative impacts of latency before even realizing what's causing them. That’s why understanding the root causes of latency and knowing how to troubleshoot these issues is essential for maintaining a fast, reliable network and ensuring uninterrupted performance.

Latency refers to the delay in data transmission across a network. It’s the time it takes for data to travel from the source – like your computer, phone, or other devices – to a destination such as a website, cloud server, data center or another device, and then back again. Measured in milliseconds (ms), latency represents the round-trip time for this data transmission.

While some latency is unavoidable due to physical limitations like distance, excessive latency can cause frustrating delays and poor performance. This is especially noticeable in time-sensitive applications like VoIP calls, video conferencing (e.g., Zoom or Microsoft Teams), and online gaming, where real-time communication is essential. If latency is too high, these applications may suffer from choppy audio, frozen video, or outright dropped connections, disrupting critical communications or workflows.

Latency can vary depending on the application, and its impact on performance is not always tied to a fixed number. Different types of applications have varying levels of sensitivity to latency. Understanding what is acceptable versus high latency helps network admins and users identify when performance may be impacted.

• Acceptable Latency (Generally under 100 milliseconds): This is considered the ideal range for most applications. At this level, data transfer feels smooth, and users are unlikely to experience any noticeable delays. For example, browsing websites, streaming videos, and even participating in video calls should all function without interruptions when latency is under 100 ms.
• High Latency (Generally over 150 milliseconds): Once latency exceeds 150 ms, the user experience begins to degrade. For example, if you're hosting a meeting on Microsoft Teams and the latency climbs over this threshold, participants may start experiencing delays in audio and video, making conversations disjointed and frustrating. In online gaming, players may notice lag, making it difficult to respond quickly in real-time scenarios. High latency also causes webpages to load more slowly and can slow down file transfers, impacting business productivity.

It’s essential to understand that low latency is good for your network as it allows for quicker data travel and more efficient communication. But, high latency means there are issues in your network that need to be resolved, leading to longer delays in data transmission and significantly degrading application performance.

Latency issues can be particularly tricky because they aren’t always visible. Unlike a broken cable or a downed server, latency problems can occur subtly in the background, slowly degrading network performance without any obvious signs. This makes it challenging to identify the root cause of slow network performance without the right tools.

To effectively detect and resolve these issues, you need continuous network latency monitoring. Network Monitoring tools track the delay times across your network in real-time, providing crucial data that helps pinpoint exactly where the delays are occurring and why.

That’s where Obkio Network Performance Monitoring tool comes in. To accurately measure latency for all your network applications, Obkio continuously monitors network performance by sending synthetic traffic between key locations. This synthetic testing allows Obkio to measure how long it takes for data packets to travel from point A to point B and back, helping you understand if that delay is impacting the performance of your applications and services.

Unlike standalone latency monitoring tools that only focus on one aspect of performance, Obkio doesn't just monitor latency, but it also monitors packet loss, bandwidth and more key metrics that also affect how data travels through your network, giving users a complete view of their network’s performance. With Obkio, you can monitor latency across your entire network infrastructure, including routers, switches, data centers, cloud, firewalls and end-user devices, helping you stay on top of any potential issues before they escalate.

• Network Monitoring Agents: Placed in key network locations to simulate user traffic and assess performance.
• Synthetic Traffic: Sending synthetic traffic every 500ms to measure the round-trip time of packets between points.
• Monitoring Critical Applications: Like VoIP, UC, and real-time services, to catch latency issues that affect essential operations.

With real-time monitoring, instant alerts, and actionable insights, Obkio helps organizations troubleshoot latency issues as they happen, ensuring smooth operations for critical applications. By leveraging Obkio’s robust features, businesses can proactively optimize network performance and avoid the costly impact of latency-related problems.

Latency issues generally happen when certain factors begin affecting the transmission of data across your network and increase the latency. The higher the latency, the more delay, the more issues. But, what affects this increasing delay?

To understand how to avoid it, you need to understand what causes it.

Congestion occurs when too many devices, applications, or users access the network simultaneously, overwhelming the network’s infrastructure. When routers and switches have to handle more traffic than they were designed for, they start queuing data packets, delaying their transmission. It’s similar to a traffic jam on a highway, where too many cars slow down the overall flow.

What a spike of Network Congestion looks like in Obkio's App

Example: In a large corporate environment, during high-demand periods such as video conferences on platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, network congestion can cause delays. For example, an enterprise using MPLS circuits for office connectivity may experience congestion during large-scale webinars, slowing down file sharing, VoIP calls, and even web browsing.

The greater the distance data has to travel, the more time it takes to reach its destination. This delay becomes more evident in long-distance communications, such as between global offices or when using cloud services hosted in geographically distant regions. Even when using high-speed fiber-optic connections, the sheer distance can add measurable delays. Physical distance between network devices, especially in the WAN, can introduce latency as signals take time to travel over long distances.

Obkio's Chord Diagram showing live Network Status of different network locations and branches

Example: A multinational company running an SD-WAN architecture might experience noticeable latency when employees in North America connect to cloud-based ERP systems hosted in European data centers. Even minor delays can have a compounding effect when large volumes of data need to be processed in real time, such as during financial reports or large data transfers.

Bandwidth represents the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over a network within a certain timeframe. When the demand for bandwidth exceeds the network’s capacity, bottlenecks form, slowing down data transmission and causing latency. This is especially problematic for video conferencing and large file transfers.

Screenshot from Obkio's NPM tool

Example: A growing company that relies on cloud collaboration tools like Google Meet, Dropbox, and Microsoft Teams can experience delays when several employees are trying to upload large files simultaneously. Limited bandwidth at their regional office network, particularly in rural or bandwidth-restricted areas, causes delays in video and voice quality during virtual meetings, frustrating employees and clients alike.

Packet loss happens when data packets are dropped or lost during transmission due to network errors or congestion. When a packet is lost, the system has to request the data again, and the need for retransmission increases the overall transmission time and results in latency. This is especially disruptive for real-time applications like VoIP and video conferencing.

Screenshot from Obkio's NPM tool

Example: An organization using VoIP communications may experience choppy audio and frequent call drops when packet loss occurs. In a hybrid network with MPLS links alongside broadband circuits, packet loss on the broadband side during periods of heavy traffic can seriously impact voice quality in calls made over Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

Routing refers to the process of selecting a path for traffic within a network. Poor routing can result in inefficient data paths, causing packets to take a longer or more complicated route than necessary, which leads to increased latency. This becomes more noticeable when the routing involves multiple hops between network nodes.

Example: A global enterprise using SD-WAN may find that certain connections between their North American and Asian offices experience higher latency due to inefficient routing. Even though SD-WAN dynamically routes traffic, the data may pass through unnecessary hops in regions with less optimal network paths, affecting the performance of real-time applications like video conferencing and cloud-based collaboration tools.

Outdated or overworked network devices, such as routers, switches, and firewalls, can introduce delays. These devices may take too long to analyze, process, or forward data packets, causing the overall transmission to slow down. As businesses scale, older hardware that worked in smaller environments may struggle with increased traffic and more complex networks.

Screenshot from Obkio's NPM tool

Example: An e-commerce company experiencing rapid growth may begin seeing latency issues as their older firewalls and routers struggle to keep up with the increased demand for data processing and traffic routing. Delays are particularly noticeable during high-traffic periods, such as Black Friday sales, when customers experience slow checkout times or transaction failures, directly impacting sales.

Wireless networks are highly susceptible to interference from external devices, physical obstructions, and overlapping Wi-Fi channels. Interference weakens signal strength, increases packet loss, and leads to higher latency. This is a common issue in densely populated areas where multiple wireless networks and electronic devices are competing for signal space.

Example: In a busy office building with multiple floors, employees using laptops and mobile devices to connect to cloud apps like Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams may experience delays and interruptions in their video calls due to interference from neighbouring wireless networks. Competing Wi-Fi signals, Bluetooth devices, and even microwaves can disrupt wireless communication, increasing latency and reducing overall productivity.

Network devices such as routers and firewalls can become overburdened when their CPUs are maxed out, leading to longer data processing times and increased latency. High CPU utilization can occur when devices are overloaded with traffic, handling complex security protocols, or performing deep packet inspections.

Screenshot from Obkio's NPM tool

Example: A company using firewalls with high levels of security inspection may find that as traffic increases, their firewall CPU usage spikes, resulting in delayed packet processing. This can be particularly detrimental during large-scale webinars or virtual conferences hosted on platforms like Zoom or Google Meet, where real-time data transmission is critical.

Since you can’t actually see data flowing through your network, it’s impossible to visually detect delays as it reaches its destination. That’s why you need the right tools and techniques to monitor your network traffic and identify any performance issues that may be slowing things down.

Here's a streamlined approach to identifying latency issues effectively:

The first step is to measure latency accurately, and for that, you need a reliable tool. Obkio’s End-to-End Network Latency Monitoring Tool continuously measures latency by sending synthetic through your network at regular intervals (every 500ms). This synthetic traffic mimics real data flowing through your network and allows you to proactively identify any issues affecting the flow of traffic and leading to latency issues.

By using synthetic traffic, you can identify latency issues before they actually affect real-user traffic.

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Latency can vary depending on where it's occurring in your network. To get a comprehensive view, deploy Network Monitoring Agents at critical points – such as your head office, data centers, and cloud environments (e.g., Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud). This setup allows you to measure latency between various locations and catch issues across your entire infrastructure, whether it’s an MPLS network, SD-WAN setup, or cloud service.

For instance, you can monitor latency between your headquarters and the Microsoft Azure cloud to identify any slowdowns that could impact your cloud-hosted services like Office 365 or Teams.

Once you’ve set up monitoring, Obkio's Network Performance Monitoring Agents collect and display latency metrics in the Network Response Time Graph. These metrics help you differentiate between acceptable and poor latency. By analyzing these metrics, you can identify when latency spikes occur and investigate which parts of your network are affected.

The higher the latency, the greater the delay and the more likely you are to have an issue. That's why Obkio also allows you to set thresholds to notify you when your latency levels are above normal.

network performance as a whole can affect latency, which is why it's important to measure other network metrics alongside it. Metrics like packet loss, jitter, and RTT can affect the transmission of data through your network and cause latency issues as well:

• Round-Trip Time (RTT): The time taken for a packet to travel to its destination and back.
• One-Way Latency: Latency measured in one direction, useful for specific network paths.
• Packet Loss Latency: Latency caused by lost packets that need to be retransmitted.
• Jitter: The variation in packet delay is especially critical for real-time applications like VoIP and video calls.

Many tools offer average latency measurements, but they might not tell the full story. Obkio aggregates data over time and highlights the worst latency periods within the aggregated data, helping you catch hidden performance issues. For example, while the average latency for a 30-day period may look acceptable, there could be occasional spikes that disrupt Zoom or Microsoft Teams calls.

With Obkio, you can set up alerts that notify you when latency deviates from your baseline performance, helping you address issues before they disrupt your network. Higher latency can lead to slow response times, causing delays in applications, file transfers, video calls, and overall productivity.

To stay ahead of these issues, it’s crucial to set thresholds based on latency levels that would start to negatively impact your network’s performance. Obkio continuously monitors latency, and when it identifies an irregularity – such as latency crossing the set threshold – it immediately alerts you, enabling you to take action before it worsens.

For a more in-depth guide to measuring latency and identifying latency issues, check out our article: How to Measure Latency.

Using Obkio's latency monitoring tool, you can effectively identify the causes and sources of latency issues. Once you understand the underlying problems, you can troubleshoot them internally or with your Managed Service Provider (MSP).

After completing the initial assessment, you should be able to identify any latency issues using the Network Response Time Graph. This graph displays the exact moments when latency occurred and its impact on the Mean Opinion Score (MOS). With this information, you can tackle latency issues by following three straightforward troubleshooting steps.

To begin troubleshooting latency, you need to catch it in action. Start by comparing monitoring sessions between the AWS Public Monitoring Agent and other deployed Public Monitoring Agents. This comparison allows you to pinpoint the source of latency, which is essential for addressing network performance issues.

If network problems are ruled out, check the user's workstation. You can install a Monitoring Agent on their device to monitor latency from their perspective.

If your analysis indicates that the problem is internal, focus on CPU and bandwidth issues with Obkio's Device Monitoring feature. Common causes of latency include high CPU usage and network congestion. Here are some strategies to address these issues:

• Examine Network Traffic: Review firewall logs to identify illegitimate traffic, which may indicate security breaches or excessive data backups during peak hours.
• Manage Firewall Priorities: Prioritize important traffic to mitigate the impact of congestion on critical applications.
• Upgrade Internet Bandwidth: If bandwidth is consistently maxed out, consider upgrading your connection with your ISP.
• Investigate Missing Resources: Check your devices for resource shortages that may lead to high CPU usage. Issues could stem from software problems or outdated firmware.

If no internal resource issues are detected, the latency may be caused by problems with your ISP. In this case, open a service ticket with your provider, providing detailed information to expedite resolution. Use data from your Obkio dashboard and traceroute results to illustrate the problem clearly.

Once you've gathered enough data, you can use Obkio Vision, a free Visual Traceroute tool, to help identify specific areas where latency occurs in your WAN and over the Internet. This information is crucial for your service provider's troubleshooting process. If latency is only present on your end, this step may not be necessary.

With tools like traceroutes, network maps, and quality matrices, you can determine if the latency is tied to a specific location or originates from your provider's network. Share this data with your provider for effective issue resolution.

Identifying Broader Network Issues

If you notice latency affecting multiple network sessions, the problem may stem from a broader network issue, such as problems with the LAN, firewall, or local loop Internet connection. In this case, prioritize troubleshooting these elements to restore optimal performance.

Conversely, if latency is isolated to a single session, it suggests that the issue is related to a specific Internet location. Focus on resolving this issue accordingly.

By leveraging Obkio's comprehensive monitoring tools, you can effectively diagnose and resolve network latency issues, ensuring a seamless online experience.

For a more in-depth exploration, be sure to check out our comprehensive guide, A Guide to Troubleshooting and How to Improve Latency, which covers each step in full detail.

A Guide to Troubleshooting and Improving Network Latency

In this guide, learn how to troubleshoot and improve network latency with fun analogies, step-by-step instructions, and tips for both users and businesses.

Learn more

Fixing your latency issue will of course depend on the cause of the problem, and your network monitoring tool will tell you what that is. But here are some fixes you can take once you know the cause of the issue:

Investing in modern hardware can significantly enhance network performance. Upgrading routers, switches, and servers to newer models with better processing power and capabilities can reduce latency. Additionally, ensure that all devices have the latest firmware and software updates to benefit from performance improvements and security fixes.

Review and optimize your network routing to ensure that data packets take the most efficient paths. Analyze routing tables and configurations to identify any unnecessary hops or routes that could introduce delays. Implementing techniques like route summarization and using more efficient routing protocols can help streamline data flow.

If latency issues are frequently encountered during peak usage times, consider increasing your Internet bandwidth. Contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to discuss upgrading your plan or consider adding additional connections to distribute the load more evenly across your network.

Wireless networks are often more susceptible to latency due to interference. To mitigate this, analyze your wireless environment for potential sources of interference, such as other electronic devices or overlapping channels. Positioning wireless access points strategically and using dual-band routers can improve signal quality and reduce latency.

For businesses that deliver content over the internet, employing a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help reduce latency. CDNs distribute your content across multiple servers located closer to end-users, minimizing the distance data must travel. This leads to faster load times and a smoother user experience, especially for websites and applications that require high-speed access.

By implementing these strategies, network administrators can proactively address latency issues, ensuring a more efficient and responsive network for all users.

Latency issues can significantly impact network performance, leading to slow response times and poor user experiences. Recognizing the common causes of latency, such as network congestion, hardware limitations, and external factors, is crucial for effective troubleshooting. By understanding these issues, network admins can take informed actions to diagnose and resolve latency problems promptly.

The importance of network monitoring cannot be overstated in preventing latency issues. Utilizing tools like Obkio’s Latency Monitoring solution allows you to gain real-time visibility into network performance, enabling to identify latency spikes, analyze trends, and address potential issues before they escalate. Continuous monitoring not only helps in troubleshooting current latency problems but also provides valuable insights for optimizing network infrastructure and routing.

Are you a network administrator or IT professional looking to identify and troubleshoot latency issues in your business? Or are you an individual user trying to assess latency for your remote work?

Whether you're managing large networks or individual workstations, Obkio's network monitoring tool is designed to meet your specific needs. Explore our tailored plans to effectively measure latency and resolve any network performance issues you may encounter.

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• 14-day free trial of all premium features
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• Measure real-time network metrics
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