In 2000, George Gilder wrote "Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World"

http://www.amazon.com/TELECOSM-Infinite-Bandwidth-Revolution...

One blurb from the book that stuck with me was the notion that in theory, accessing an external hard drive half-way across the world via a pure fiber connection could be quicker than accessing an external hard drive on your desk via copper. True? I don't know, but he thought so at the time.