The straight line distance between New York City and Chicago is 1,146 km (712 miles). Data through a standard fiber-optic cable travels at 200,000 km/sec. A fiber-optic cable strung in a straight line between these two cities should have an expected round-trip latency of about 11.5 milliseconds. Given the distance, there also needs to be amplifiers, and the line will never be straight, so the actual travel time is longer. In 2010, Spread Networks began offering a service that could do this round trip in 13 milliseconds. If we convert this to one-way, also known as a half-round-trip, the latency would be 6,500,000 nanoseconds (billionths of a second).  It should be noted that this project at the time had cost $300M USD. Seven years later, after competition from microwave solutions entered the market, Spread Networks was sold for $117M.

For perspective, when trading stocks, the current record using the STAC-T0 benchmark is 13.9 nanoseconds. Having helped define this benchmark and been on the team that set it on two prior occasions, I know that some traders would pay handsomely, as shown in the fiber example above, to move trading information frictionlessly from NYC to Chicago. By frictionless, I mean eliminating this bothersome 6.5 million nanoseconds of half-round-trip latency, enter the Quantum Teleportation of Data. It should also be noted that NYC to Chicago is just one of many very profitable paths that could be exploited. 

“Spooky Action at a Distance” is the phrase Einstein used to describe what we now call Quantum Teleportation of Data. It’s been proven through experimentation that if one member of a pair of entangled particles, which are separated by some random distance, has its spin (value) measured, then the corresponding spin of the other particle will align with the value of its entangled partner. A third particle can then be introduced to influence the spin of the first particle, and the second particle will again mirror the change in the first. In theory, particles one and two could be on opposite sides of the universe with no physical connection between them, yet remain instantaneously synchronized, with zero latency. Keep in mind that no physical media connects these particles; one could be on Earth and the other on Mars. This seriously concerned Einstein because the instantaneous communication of these spin changes from particle one to particle two, over any distance, violates the speed of light. Something he was very fond of, but quantum mechanics does not follow the traditional laws he worked with.

Recent experiments published in Science Advances have shown that even unentangled particles can exhibit nonlocality, suggesting that entangled photons may not be required for quantum teleportation. Also, another experiment published yesterday used fuzzy-state photons (not entangled), quantum dots, and off-the-shelf fiber cable to demonstrate quantum teleportation.

Other experiments using satellites and establishing entanglement-based downlinks have been completed. A recent paper from Australia has proposed establishing satellite uplinks using entangled photons, so work to establish a quantum network, or quantum Internet, is advancing. 

In the following article: “If it Sounds to Good to be True…” I show that everything above lacks context, and as such, faster-than-light communication is impossible, sorry.