Another component that is generally outside the control of a network operator is the overall network path. Peering agreements between upstream providers will determine the final path traffic with traverse. This path will often be weighted toward monetary cost and not always network path cost.
For many years, I ran the network for a small company in Minneapolis, MN, with the majority of our customers being local to Minneapolis. On occasion, I would receive complaints of slow performance of our network as customers attempted to communicate with our systems.
After troubleshooting, we would identify a slow hop in the path between their systems and our systems. The most frustrating part was, physically, our facilities were only 10 or so miles apart (16 km), but the network path would go approximately 400 miles (645 km) to Chicago and another 400 miles back.
At the time, due to our hosting situation, we did not have the tools or agreements in place to change the network routing...