Speed of Light Communications and the Internet Protocol (IP)

We often take the global network infrastructure and communications protocols that underpin the Internet, and everything else that enables digital communications for granted. How does an email, video or voice call transcend from a screen onto wires to arrive, at the speed-of-light, in a different part of the world? An email sent from London to Sydney takes roughly 70 milliseconds (ms) to reach the receiving end user. This is less than a tenth of a second! That is quite extraordinary! How doe...