The sum of costs associated with each link traversed in a path is known as the

• A. Latency
• B. Hop count
• C. Path length
• D. Bandwidth

Answer: (C)

Path length is about the total cost to travel from the start to the end of a route, obtained by adding up the cost assigned to each link along the path. In routing, each link can have a different cost reflecting distance, delay, or other factors, and the overall path length is the sum of those per-link costs. This is why it’s used to find the best route: it accounts for how expensive or long the entire path is, not just how many hops you pass through.

Hop count, by contrast, counts only the number of links (hops) and ignores any variation in cost between links. Latency refers to the actual time delay, which can be related but is not the same as summing a cost metric. Bandwidth is about the data rate a link can carry, not the accumulated cost of a path.