Comment by c7DJTLrn
2 years ago
Does this add up? If the connection timeout is 3ms, then that means there's 3ms for a roundtrip, 1.5ms each way. So the maximum distance would actually be roughly 250 miles. But even then, packets don't actually travel at the speed of light in fiber optic cables. It also assumes that the cables are laid as the crow flies, which they aren't.
Those are all in the FAQ that you can find at a different place where this story has been published (http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html).