Anyone from Australia regularly call the UK

Distance - London to Sydney = 10553.06 Miles

Time for an electronic signal that travels almost at the speed of light without taking resistance into account.

0.05666 Seconds for light to cover 10,554.761 Miles.

That's about it, roughly.

That's a direct line though if the call is made landline only. Without knowing the actual communications network in it's entirety I can't calculate beyond a direct line.
 
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ajones32 said:
Distance - London to Sydney = 10553.06 Miles

Time for an electronic signal that travels almost at the speed of light without taking resistance into account.

0.05666 Seconds for light to cover 10,554.761 Miles.

That's about it, roughly.

That's a direct line though if the call is made landline only. Without knowing the actual communications network in it's entirety I can't calculate beyond a direct line.
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Add in satellite distances, I'd expect at least 1 orbiting at roughly 20,000 miles to be used in a call of that kind. Also the fact that the signal won't be travelling at anything like the speed of light, and that there are multiple other things that can delay the call other than simply distance, and that means basically nothing :p
 
It's about 0.07s or 67ms in optimal conditions using direct submarine cabling. Add a Sat-link and that raises to 0.25s for 20k and 80k kilometres respectively.

As Zefan said though there are a veritable multitude of other factors that can interfere or delay a signal thus increasing latency, radio waves can be affected by just about anything, but the above figures are basically representative in ideal conditions.
 
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Will be around 150ms delay - unless theres a not so great sat link in the picture where it could be a fair bit more.

<70ms would be ideal conditions, but in reality with varied routing, switching delays, etc. your looking at atleast another 50-70ms on top of that and around 500-700ms if theres a sat link involved.
 
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hurfdurf said:
I still don't understand how phones let alone the internet could possibly work, it all seems like black magic to me.
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That is precisely why people believe is such things as homeopathy and religion. Complexity prompts 2 reactions from people intrigue and a thirst for understanding, or complete casual dismissal and acceptance of the easiest answer :)
 
I would say it's about 2 seconds, I have relitives in Australia that we call every Christmas and it's really strange but you say something, wait 2 seconds, then they respond lol
 
When you call a land line there is no noticeable delay, when you call a mobile a delay is evident and you get people talking at the same time due to the delay.
 
Skype seems to have at least a second delay - though we are using 4g wimax for our internet so the problem could be that, phones (mobile) nothing noticeable at all.
 
Tikkabhuna said:
Could you find a server in aus and ping it?
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Voice calls and internet traffic are handled in different ways (usually) - servers in Aus typically ping about 180-400ms depending on what part of the country they are in - but a ping is both ways, the delay on a voice call is usually one way.

When playing Eve Online I've been on comms at the same time with people from the US, Australia and the UK/EU and theres no noticeable delay most of the time.
 
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