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Suppose i had a fiber optic link from one side of the planet to the other side of the planet.

Is it safe to say, that with current technology, the latency of communication can never be reduced?

Understand that a fiber optic cable is not a perfect medium thus data only travels close to the speed of light.

Also lets consider that i will not be drilling a hole thru the center of the earth and it is just running along the ocean and or land.

Update: Thank you all who responded. It's a little saddening that current technology has this limitation. In the mean time I will consider CDNs and some sort of geo load balancing. Cheers!

HopelessN00b
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JavaRocky
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4 Answers4

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Actually, it does not even travel close to the speed of light.

Firstly, the refractive index for glass is approximately 1.5, varying by the exact material. This means that light traveling through glass in a straight line only goes about 2e8 m/s, not 3e8.

And then you have to consider the curvature of the path. Even with single-mode fiber there is a lot of sideways drift along the entire run. This can easily increase the actual distance traveled by 15% or more. So what sounds like an incredible (although it actually isn't given such large distances) 3e8 m/s has been cut nearly in half.

Transmission with lasers and mirrors would be faster, but then you have to consider that things such as atmospheric perturbation, and even birds would cause communications trouble.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
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I think fiber optic technology might be improved to where it closer approaches the speed of light.

Guessing whether there might ever be a technology that can transfer data FASTER then light is purely speculation. I've heard very theoretical talk of transferring data via quantum entanglement...where two photons can be "entangled" as one object and changing photon A's state will cause photon B's state to change, even when they are seperated over a great distance. Is this faster then light? Will it ever be practical? I don't know, just my non-physicist-layman's 2 cents (see comments).

Cory J
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Yes, definitely. The only thing you can to today is to reduce the latency added while sending or receiving the signal (faster computers, faster routers etc.).

Sven
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Yes The answer is simple. Figure the speed allowing for the fact that the medium is not in a vaccuum and then calculate the distance to determine the time a trip will take. It cannot be changed.

Naturally, there are other factors for data transmission as TCP/IP is somewhat chatty

Dave M
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