[ih] Better-than-Best Effort: Lower latency

[vinton cerf]

Hollow fiber was pioneered by Sir David Payne at the University of
Southampton. Payne brought us erbium-doped fiber to extend the length of
fiber that could carry a signal farther, before requiring a repeater, to
over 1500 km.


v


On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 11:02 PM John Gilmore via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> wrote:
> > Latency is possibly more important now than bandwidth, since while
> > fiber can provide lots of bandwidth but no one has yet figured out how
> > to move data faster than the speed of light.
>
> Just when you thought some trope was likely to be true, more facts
> intrude...
>
>
> https://www.nojitter.com/enterprise-networking/hollow-fiber-new-option-low-latency
>
> Turns out that microwave links are "faster than the speed of light
> in fiber", but air-filled hollow fiber is apparently even faster.  See
> also:
>
>   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_Networks
>
> And then there's going to low-earth orbit and back on straight lines,
> via Starlink, rather than going "around" the globe on a great-circle
> fiber route.  This is claimed to be able to reduce NY/London latency,
> even when there are no working inter-satellite laser links (and thus
> multiple hops between orbit and ground stations are required):
>
>
> https://circleid.com/posts/20191230_starlink_simulation_low_latency_without_intersatellite_laser_links/
>
> It appears that there are lots of ways to skin the latency cat despite
> the speed of light.
>
>         John
>
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