- Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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Never use a preposition to end a sentence with - Churchill
Pigeon protocol offers faster data delivery
AN UNORTHODOX RACE in South Africa has revealed that it is faster to transmit 4GB of data via carrier pigeon than it is to send it over the country's main ADSL services.
An IT company in Durban decided to hold a competition to test a theory once discussed over a watercooler. Would it be faster to use a carrier pigeon to send data than to use the country's biggest web firm, Telkom? Bad news for Telkom - yes, it is.
In the race held yesterday between Howick and Hillcrest, a pigeon named Winston managed to transport a 4GB memory stick 60 miles in just two hours, the same amount of time it took the firm's web connection to transmit just four percent of the data. Of course Telkom said that slow speeds at its customer end have nothing to do with it.
Overall though, estimates suggest that it would have taken days to send the data, which would have given Winston the winged rat loads of time to, er, decorate many statues of military heroes before finally turning up to claim his victory bread crust.
Like Telkom we can't be sure what is wrong with the firm's web connection, but old school methods of delivery have long been favoured by those in the know.
Some people still use the old practice of moving files between machines on floppy disks, remember them? And way back in the 1970s, Dr. Warren Jackson said, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes." Nothing has changed, actually.
Winston the pigeon already has over 3,000 friends on Facebook. We don't imagine that anyone at Telkom is one of them. µ
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The pidgeon's name is Winston...I love Winston...You go bird!!!!!
I like this kind of news :)
Now what is missing is "was this pigeon running on Windows or *NIX :)
any other flame war subject will be fine too :)
The bird was so fast because he didn't stop to eat any apples of look in any windows.
Publicly shame all of these luddite ISPs who artificially hold people back when the cost of broadband infrastructure per subscriber has plummeted in the last ten years.
I am with O2 since last week. I am waiting for the line to "stabilize" (lol) and currently get 0,8 - 1,6MBPS in friggin canary wharf.
I'll be going to B&Q tomorrow to buy a bird cage ffs.
The bandwidth might be higher with the pigeon, but the ping response time sucks for WoW.
Try it in Australia and you'd use up all your monthly broadband quota.
Did they include the time it took to transfer the 4GB of data onto/off of the USB stick? It probably wouldn't take days, but probably a couple hours depending on how many files were involved.
Methinks you need a new USB stick or it's time to take the plunge and upgrade to USB 2.0.
@veri745 i have a usb stick that will transfer at 17MBs its an OCZ rally 2 you should get one.
LOL i love this article its so true it takes broadband providers just don't "provide" the necessary upload bandwidth i used to not be able to download a HD video from a website or watch youtube and play any xbox live game at the same time although my connection has improved within the last year its still way slower than i would like.
In Dialup days it was cheaper to send CD on Taxi. cost of CD and Taxi Fair included.
This is THE ANSWER to the RIAA's reign of terror...pigeon-to-pigeon protocol.
Everyone would only need to invest in only one carrier pigeon and one 4GB memory stick. Then turn'em loose, put out some bread crumbs, load/reload the data from the next bird that lands in your yard, and repeat the process (might want to get PETA involved as well, just in case the RIAA weasels break out their shotguns).
That particular quote was originally a Tanenbaum one (from Computer Networks, 4th Ed. p. 91), similar concepts have been used for a long while though, but he was the first to have it in print :)
I live in SA and the pigeon is probably a lot cheaper as well. Telkom is the only ADSL network provider. All other broadband is wireless which is why less than 40% of broadband is through ADSL.
The monthly charge for a 512k ADSL line (excluding any data usage) is R326 (27GBP)
To actually use the line, you need to buy cap at a rate of around R50 (4GBP) / GB.
This only came down to this in the last month. Prior to that, it cost around R80 (7GBP) / GB.
Is Telkom this bad? What ever happened to teaming up to make 2010 happen? Teaming up with Pidgins? Lol.
Telkom runs a monopoly here is SA, everyone knows it and everyone bitches about their service.
However the Gov has their fingers in the pie and doesn't want to open up to competition, holding ppl ranson is far more profitable than dropping prices and helping the country get out of its 3rd world status. Check out http://www.helkom.co.za/
Whether its an oppressive white gov or a new multi coloured one that employs half wits to line their pockets ahem, run the country we are still stuck with them!
Hey any British out there who want to come back and try your hand at running the place? Please we don't want to end up like Zimbabwe.
We'll welcome American too! Just watch out for the prawns in District 9 y'all
At last, the revival of RFC1149
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt
60 miles = 96.6km. I used to live near there, I can tell you it's NOT 60 miles, as the crow (or pidgeon) flies, probably about 25km's.
And the article fails to mention the upload speeds on the circuit are a fraction of the download speeds.
This truely was a publicity stunt.
Nice read! Its not often when I read a memo from start to finish :)
Hey - you could never have lived anywhere near here. I live in Hillcrest and Howick IS 96kms/60miles away.
Publicity stunt or not, it highlights the fact that we have the most expensive and slowest internet on the planet and Telkom, as the ONLY provider of ADSL in the country, is to blame.
That could scale MASSIVELY. Get 10 pidgeons, or even 100! Imagine that kind of data transfer!!!