Telecomm question

[Botch]

I know a couple of you here work in telecomm, and a few other smart people here, I have a dumb question:
During the Gulf War, live TV reporting was always plagued by a several second delay between a newscaster here in the US asking a question, and the reporter in the Middle East actually hearing it, and then answering. It was a tad frustrating, and SNL even did a skit on it.
Well, during this Ukraine disaster, that doesn't happen anymore, they seem to converse back and forth like they were in your living room. I know light (and RF) only takes about a second to go from Earth to the Moon, and that speed constant hasn't changed.
Is it just within newer switching relays, etc, that that dead space is removed, or is everything pre-recorded and edited before airing?

 

[Towen7]

The are significantly more fiber and microwave connected DRAN and CRAN macro radios in the world today and point-to-point routing has gotten dramatically faster/better/more secure. Many strategists assumed that Russia might be able to use "cyber" attacks to shutdown Ukraine's communications network and power grids. But ... those networks are often tightly interconnected with neighboring countries and taking one down could cascade and result in outages elsewhere ... like Poland.

And since Poland is a full member of NATO taking out segments of their power or communications grids could be seen as triggering Article 5.

 

[Botch]

Thanks Tom.
There was a bit in the news about Elon Musk's satellites now restoring some of Ukraine's intranetz.

 

[zod]

The are significantly more fiber and microwave connected DRAN and CRAN macro radios in the world today and point-to-point routing has gotten dramatically faster/better/more secure. Many strategists assumed that Russia might be able to use "cyber" attacks to shutdown Ukraine's communications network and power grids. But ... those networks are often tightly interconnected with neighboring countries and taking one down could cascade and result in outages elsewhere ... like Poland.

And since Poland is a full member of NATO taking out segments of their power or communications grids could be seen as triggering Article 5.

What he said. Plus the top four layers of the OSI model are a lot more sophisticated now:

OSI model - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Or as Thomas Friedman put it today:
I see many people citing Robert Kagan’s fine book “The Jungle Grows Back” as a kind of shorthand for the return of this nasty and brutish style of geopolitics that Putin’s invasion manifests. But that picture is incomplete. Because this is not 1945 or 1989. We may be back in the jungle — but today the jungle is wired. It is wired together more intimately than ever before by telecommunications; satellites; trade; the internet; road, rail and air networks; financial markets; and supply chains. So while the drama of war is playing out within the borders of Ukraine, the risks and repercussions of Putin’s invasion are being felt across the globe — even in China, which has good cause to worry about its friend in the Kremlin.

Welcome to World War Wired — the first war in a totally interconnected world. This will be the Cossacks meet the World Wide Web. Like I said, you haven’t been here before.

Opinion | We Have Never Been Here Before (Published 2022)

Putin’s war has ensured the world will never be the same.

www.nytimes.com

Things change