Abstract: A method and system for determining timers in an High Level Data Link Control (HDLC) Traffic Manager (HTM) state machine are disclosed. According to one aspect, the invention provides for determining a transit delay between two nodes by sending a first packet having a delay measurement byte to a second node that is on a link between the first node and the second node. The method also includes receiving a second packet with the delay measurement byte from the second node. The delay measurement byte sent by the second node is adjusted by the second node to indicate its receipt by the second node. A measured delay value is determined. The measured delay value is the delay between a time of sending the first packet to the second node and receiving the second packet from the second node. The measured delay value is determined by the hardware of the first node. Upon determining the measured delay value, timer values of the HTM state machine are set based on the measured delay value.