[Denvercoder9]

> So about 2/3 of the latency is caused by relays and switching equipment.

Not really; the speed of light in fiber optic cable is only about two-thirds of that in a vacuum. That means it takes light about ~60ms to travel the 12,000km great arc distance.

[gosub100]

thats a great point, I failed to consider c in the propagation medium. however, OP didn't specify that either, he just insinuated that we can perceive propagation delays by c. we are both wrong (in his specific case about telecom delays, we have absolutely contrived experiments to detect it)