The delays, in human terms, aren't all that long. But they're one of the many things that conspire to make all video Webcasts look like jerky Max Headroom reruns. An all-optical switch is the answer. And it wouldn't just be for the likes of a long-distance carrier such as Qwest. The more switching they can do with photons, the greater the amount of fibre cable they can lay in place of copper wires.
Copper is much more expensive than fibre.
Deregulation has meant that a range of competitors is now fighting for position beneath city streets. The fact that no one has pulled this off yet indicates that building the all-photon network won't be easy. So you assign the Manitoba packets a specific wavelength and, as they approach Winnipeg, use some kind of optical filter to divert them on their way. A system, in short, that could make Cisco's electronic routers as obsolete as mechanical adding machines. With microphotonics, as this dream is sometimes called, things get very murky.