At the beginning of the 19th century, it was possible to wirelessly transmit a short message from Amsterdam to Venice in one hour’s time. A few years before, a messenger on a horse would have needed at least a month’s time to do the same.
...the low-tech predecessor of electronic mail more or less obtained the same result without wires or energy, while the internet consists of a cluster of cables and is devouring our energy resources at an ever faster pace.
So cool and I had never heard of it. You hear far more about how means of travel have sped up. We tend to kind of overlook the importance of speed of communication.
(And I read the entire thing thinking of Gandalf lighting the signal fire without permission via the help of a hobbit...)