[maeln]

The distance from my city to new york is roughly 5600km which, given the slightly slower speed of light in a optical fiber, would give a minimum ping of ~27ms (one way). Given the same distance but in a vacuum, it would be around 18ms.

But if I ping a server in NY right now, my actual ping would be around 100ms (can easily go up to 200ms). Most of the latency is created because of the routing. The farther you are from important peering hub, the worse your ping is usually going to be.

When I was living in French Guyana, it was basically impossible to have a ping less than 120ms from anywhere in the world.

[zamadatix]

To note for others who might be caught off guard: minimum ping over an ideal direct fiber path would therefore be ~54 ms since ping reports round-trip time, not the one-way value.