Most of those hops would be on ISP equipment with 10G or 100G interfaces, modern routers forward packets in tens to hundreds of microseconds and switches can do it in a few microseconds, so as long as there is a bit of distance it will account for most of the delay, and SOL is 2/3 of its speed I'm vacuum. Switches can even sends out packets on a port before it has been fully received on the incoming port
True, though routers with 100G interfaces do not have a lot of buffer space. But most ISP's make sure that isn't happening as it its pretty bad for their customers experience. I know some ISP's do not put enough effort into that at all but every single one I worked for did (Europe). In this case Google can put effort into direct peering relationships to make sure that their customers have a good experience.
