No. I'm talking about measuring the time in-between inputs being received over the remote connection. Purely observation from the receiver side of the connection.

Network overhead + dropped and re-sent packets, introducing unusual lag in between commands/keystrokes.

A key being pressed and key being released are two separate events that get transmitted separately and usually happen pretty close together. That gap getting larger, due to the long-distance connection introducing lag, could be what they were looking at.