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While Ethernet and WLAN typically have latencies on the order of 1-10ms, mobile networks (GPRS, UMTS etc.) have much higher latencies (200-400 ms for UMTS, even more for GPRS).

Why is that?

I assume there must be some inherent technical reason, but what is it? Does it have to do with how data is transmitted over the air? And if it is because of the wireless transmission, why does WLAN have much lower latencies?

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Note: This was originally posted on serverfault.com, but closed as off-topic. So please don't vote to move it there :-). serverfault.com/questions/387627/… – sleske May 9 '12 at 20:36
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sleske, seeing that you have more reputation than me, you should've known to not repost questions. Ask Meta.SeverFault or the moderators to have your original question migrated here. :) – iglvzx May 9 '12 at 20:38
@iglvzx - in theory that's correct, except it's not really on topic here. – ChrisF May 9 '12 at 20:39
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It's not really a home networking problem. – ChrisF May 9 '12 at 20:42
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Back when we decided about on-topicness of networking, we explicitly mentioned not dealing with anything else than home networking, therefore voting to close as off topic. I generally don't think it's necessary to look at other sites just to determine what's on topic here, so that's how I evaluated this question. – slhck♦ May 9 '12 at 20:50
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closed as off topic by ChrisF, slhck♦, Breakthrough, random♦ May 9 '12 at 20:51

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