Because the speed of light is different in different mediums. It depends on the index of refraction. Most of the Internet is on fiber optics, and the speed of light in glass fiber is dramatically slower than in a vacuum. Long distance single-mode communication fiber typically has a core index of refraction of 1.4682 at 1550nm (mid-C-band). So the speed of light in this type of fiber is the speed of light in a vacuum 299,792,458 m/s divided by 1.4682 = 204,190,477 m/s. You have to add to that the latency of any optical to electrical transformations, which happens in most every router or switch. Three days is probably an underestimate.

-mel beckman

On Jul 21, 2024, at 7:47 AM, Josh Luthman <josh@imaginenetworksllc.com> wrote:

Where do you get 3 days?

Voyager 1 is about 15.2B miles or 22.665707 hours at the speed of light.

On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 7:12 PM Nathan Angelacos <nangel@tetrasec.net> wrote:

On Sat, 2024-07-20 at 00:58 -0500, Stas Bilder wrote:

Pity we can’t ping Voyagers.

S.

ROTFL, you actually had me pull out Star Trek - The Movie... Wow... what a blast from 1979.

So yeah ... According to our media outlets, RTT of the internet is ... um 3 days.