[crote]

On the other hand, it is only 33% - and that is an upper bound.

Getting data to literally the other side of the globe currently takes about 100 milliseconds. How many truly novel applications open up by that latency dropping to 66ms?

For short-distance stuff the latency is already low enough to be practically realtime. For long-distance stuff we're already fast enough for human-level applications (like video chat), but it's not dropping enough for computer-level applications (like synchronous database replication).

I'm sure some HFT traders are going to make an absolute fortune, but I doubt it'll have a huge impact for most other people.

[batmansmk]

I made my master thesis on real-time, with a chapter where I experimented with different levels of jitter and latency. Jitter is the consistency of the latency, is it like a locked 66ms or sometimes does it go to 200ms. Jitter is more impactful than latency for a wide range of applications, from gaming to music and video call. Having a lower latency allows for lower jitter, or less jitter while keeping the same latency. Today’s discovery is huge imo.

[lillecarl]

Doesn't jitter come from the switches and routers along the path? I have a hard time seeing a fibre having significant jitter.

[moron4hire]

Also, there is a very narrow threshold of latency timings in which "real time" communication goes from looking real time to actually feeling real time. That narrow window is why people end up interrupting each other or feeling like they can't get a word in edge wise on video calls all the time.

[davidmr]

> I'm sure some HFT traders are going to make an absolute fortune, but I doubt it'll have a huge impact for most other people.

They’ve been using hollow core fiber (and funding research into it) for nearly a decade. I know it goes back further than the 2017 spinoff mentioned in the article, but https://optics.org/news/11/9/52 talks about it a bit.

[notimetorelax]

I generally agree with you, but! Video or audio calls between EU and the US still have a much higher chance of speaking up at the same time and it’s due to lag. If the latency is decreased by 33% it might be a game changer.

[g-mork]

Mind-boggling logic, for example any existing roundtrip-heavy application (such as CIFS) would gain visibly and immensely because that latency is multiplicative

[lucyjojo]

online music playing is HEAVILY latency sensitive. (for instance an online jazz session)

then you have online video games. increasing the area where you can get good connections increase quadratically (or more, if we hit step function = big city get in range) the viability of niche multiplayer video games and it is thus a boost to creativity.

there are probably many more niches... (need to think of reachable area, quadratic, instead of 1-to-1 link linear)

[dcminter]

> and that is an upper bound

I've often wondered if for HFT or similar it might be worth pointing a particle accelerator at the floor and going for direct-line transit times. I'm fairly sure that this is theoretically possible, but no idea if the engineering challenge is beyond reach for use as a communication link.

[BoppreH]

If your signal is "transparent" enough go through so much rock and iron without being absorbed (like neutrinos), you'll have a hard time capturing it on the receiver side.

[dcminter]

Well, OPERA was 700ish km, but had Cern at one end. If one has this as the sole goal and wanted to do it real-time over 12,000km is it "engineering-possible" vs "theoretically-possible" ? My guess is that it depends how much money stands to be made ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPERA_experiment

[estimator7292]

Basically just aim you accelerator at any neutron detector.

Problem is you'd drop more packets than IP over pigeons.

[dcminter]

I think you're confusing neutrons and neutrinos. Firing neutrons at the floor will definitely give you a very radioactive floor.

[Hikikomori]

Does carrier pigeons have that high packet loss?

[nly]

HFT traders probably won't make any extra money unless they deploy this first to their dedicated international links.

Almost all of them deploy their strategies within exchange colo's already

[rich_sasha]

There's a lot of need for communication still. In US, futures trade mostly in Chicago, but equities in New York, for example. In Europe things trade all over the place.

[black_knight]

What this would do is increase the radius of where you can do some latency constrained thing. If your latency budget is 20ms, you could now do that over a bigger areas.

[_2d30]

HFT uses microwaves for anything over distance. Unless this beats microwave latency, this doesn’t do anything for them fwiw

[rich_sasha]

Microwave is only feasible over medium distances - can't do it over the ocean, as it requires LoS. Also IIRC, microwave bandwidth is considerably lower than fibre, and sometimes it matters.

[firebird84]

Microwave is also affected by weather. They sometimes say that markets are slightly less efficient on rainy days. It’s a bit of a joke, but basically packet loss goes way up and they rely more on fiber links when microwave links are being shitty.

[ac29]

Traders have at least experimented with shortwave too: https://spectrum.ieee.org/wall-street-tries-shortwave-radio-...

[davidmr]

You still need to traverse physical segments in the wireless path: think receiving dish to the next transmitting dish, the end of the path to get from the trading systems onto the roof and into to the first dish, etc. Every nanosecond counts.

[newsclues]

Great for gamers

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

don't know about truly novel, but CS:GO players certainly would benefit.