Some fiber-optic cables are faster than others, because they’re full of air. Hollow-core fibers have a large central cutout and/or a close hexagonal packing of smaller glass tubes. The latter are technically a “photonic crystal.”
Comment on NASA Ping
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 11 months agoRadio waves always propagate at the speed of light, it’s just that the effective speed of light in copper and glass fibre is lower than that in air/vacuum.
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
psud@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Speed of light in fiberoptic cable is slower than c for a different reason. The light is in something close to vacuum, signals travel slower than c because the light doesn’t follow a straight path, it zig zags bouncing off the walls.
A radio wave or laser in reasonable vacuum (in orbit for example) will be lower latency than a signal on a fiber link the same length
I’m expecting lower ping via starlink than fiber once starlink has laser links between satellites