[Quite often I'll think twice before commenting on HN due to this type of out of context, knee-jerk retort. It is really not adding to the conversation or helping anyone learn anything new.]
SONET has optical networking in its name. It appears to me that data not being transmitted over copper wires is a pretty crucial aspect of it... but really none of this matters as I was simply pointing out that TCP is not relevant to the speed record, in answer to the top two comments above, and not trying to make any absolute assertions about how the transport protocol works. So yes, you're right, I guess?