Which factor can help reduce latency in network communications?

Reducing latency in network communications is essential for enhancing the performance and responsiveness of applications and services. Using more throughput or fewer data hops is particularly effective in achieving this.

Throughput refers to the amount of data transmitted across a network in a given time frame, and maximizing throughput ensures that data can be sent and received efficiently, thereby minimizing the time taken for communication. Meanwhile, having fewer data hops means that data packets have to pass through fewer intermediate devices or nodes before reaching their destination. Each hop introduces a small amount of delay; therefore, reducing the number of hops directly improves the speed of data transmission.

Together, maximizing throughput and minimizing the number of hops can significantly enhance the speed and reliability of connections, which ultimately lowers latency.

In contrast to this, increasing the number of hops would typically have the opposite effect, as each additional hop could introduce more delay. Higher bandwidth limits can improve the capacity of the network but may not directly address latency if the path taken by the data requires many hops. Expanding network coverage focuses on geographical reach rather than directly impacting the speed of data transmission or latency.