Pigeon faster than Internet

"A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom , the country's leading internet service provider.

Internet speed and connectivity in Africa's largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.

Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card strapped to his leg.

Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line."

Reuters

I imagine it is a similar situation in the UK, particularly with some of the traffic managed ISPs.

In reply to a post by Pod:

I imagine it is a similar situation in the UK, particularly with some of the traffic managed ISPs.

Lol. Why do think I have a pet budgie? I've never needed him with Be but it's always good to have a backup plan

Nice one!

Free Chat faster than General Broadband Chatter.

Edited by MHC (Thu 10-Sep-09 14:59:29)

Am I the only person who thinks the story is just stupid?

Unless I am misunderstood, the data was being Uploaded via an ADSL line too?

Doing a bit of (poor) Maths, I think it works out as a transfer speed of 180Kbps, which for ADSL upload speed, doesn't sound too bad (considering the upload speed on most UK ADSL lines used to be 256Kbps back in the days of fixed speed lines).

Of course, my maths could be way off, and if it is I appologise. But to me the story just seems stupid, becaus anyone who knows anything about ADSL, knows that in a test like this, the upload speed will severely limit the download speed.

A pigeon is only half duplex

Isn't a pigeon simplex? You have to transport it away from the base station to which it returns. It won't fly in the opposite direction.

It can only communicate in one direction at a time, half duplex. Mind you, I'm not really up on pigeon fancying, so perhaps I'm wrong.

Simplex can only communicate in one direction.

Perspex is when it hits a closed window.

Edited by Corbo (Thu 10-Sep-09 15:50:34)

In reply to a post by Corbo:

It can only communicate in one direction at a time, half duplex. Mind you, I'm not really up on pigeon fancying, so perhaps I'm wrong.

Simplex can only communicate in one direction.

Perspex is when it hits a closed window.

Exactly. Any particular pigeon will only communicate from away to home. It will not go from home to away. Simplex!

A dog is half-duplex.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 10-Sep-09 16:37:31)

What happens when the pigeon gets lost, or get killed mid flight.