Long Distance

I just called a screen printer in Christchurch about my order. (I'm ordering 30 shirts with my winterover T-shirt design.) There was a wicked delay on the call, and I talked to my coworker Antz (a former employee of Telecom New Zealand) about it. Here's what we figured out: my call went from my office here through three other buildings in McMurdo, then on a microwave link to our Black Island communications station, then up to a geostationary satellite, back down to Australia, then over a fiber optic cable to California, over fiber to Denver, then back out through Raytheon's switch to Qwest's network, then routed to my calling card's central switching place (probably in Omaha, or some place like that), then back out to California, then to Hawaii over trans-Pacific fiber, then down to Auckland, then over telecom NZ's fiber down to Christchurch via Wellington. Whew! Technology is wild, eh?