Comment by egeozcan
20 hours ago
> How much difference is there between beacon fire and fiber optic cable?
I mean, sure, the beacon fire transmits at the blistering rate of roughly one bit per several minutes, assuming nobody fell asleep on watch, the wood was dry, the fog cooperated, and the enemy hadn't already lit a fake beacon to mess with you. Fiber optic, by contrast, limps along at a measly several terabits per second. Not to mention the flexibility to increase the range by just starting a bigger fire.
Well I didn't say it was achievable at the time. But is it really that unimaginable?
> assuming nobody fell asleep on watch, the wood was dry, the fog cooperated, and the enemy hadn't already lit a fake beacon to mess with you.
So you are talking about dealing with "packet" loss and data encryption, right? Those concepts were not new to them.
The rate is infinit bits, times infinite copies on infinite cables in infinite directions, per several minutes.