Here's a good one from the archives.
"America and Europe will soon be linked by the first trans-Atlantic telephone cables," reads this March 1954 article from Popular Mechanics.
Any good telecoms scholar has probably come across Charles K. Kao.
But even if you aren’t familiar with Kao, you’ve benefitted from his work. You might know him better as the father of fiber optic communication.
One tiny data packet has traveled the world. It’s made its way from Sydney, Australia, all the way to London, traversing undersea cables to reach its intended destination.
But here’s something interesting: the (potentially) most expensive part of this data packet’s trip is only just beginning. How could this be?
No. This effect has nothing to do with a big parade.
The trombone effect, or just "tromboning," attempts to categorize the curious, latency-causing path information might travel due to the hub-and-spoke nature of the internet.
What happened during Friday’s massive internet outage on the East Coast?
