Pigeon beats Internet firm in data transfer race

[Diesel]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A South African company on Wednesday proved it was faster to transmit data by carrier pigeon than to send it using the country's leading internet service provider.

Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 50 miles from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card strapped to its 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 line provided by Telkom.


SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.

The company has 11 call centers around the country and regularly sends data to its other branches.

Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment.

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

Internet speed is expected to improve once a new 10,500-mile underwater fiber optic cable linking southern and East Africa to other networks becomes operational before South Africa hosts the soccer World Cup next year.

Source

[PH3AR]

Very interesting story, nice find Diez!

Hopefully they can get Africa some high speed interent, cause it would be cool to play some Uncharted 2 or anything Online with someone in Africa since I never ran into anyone online from there

[Purplegrasshopper]

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

It depends on what online connections people use in South Africa nowadays. However, this is very interesting, given the fact that surprisingly a pigeon bested over a computer in over an hour or so.

[xtop]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

besides people in africa that have to use the slow internet you mean?

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by xtop

besides people in africa that have to use the slow internet you mean?

Well, I guess he cares more about a lot more interesting facts than this one.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

Africans?

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

Err, Africans. People who do business with Africans.

[btf1980]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

Yeah! Like who cares about internet in NEVADA! My carrier pigeon left to give you a PM!

John

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

It's a very colorful example of why physical media may have an advantage over Internet based data transmission. Depending on the size of the data and the geography, the cost and time for transmission may make physically transporting the data easier, faster, cheaper, etc.

I think you can see where I am drawing an analogy with Blu-ray technology here.

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by Purplegrasshopper

This is dumb. Who cares about internet in Africa anyways?

This is ridiculous. Why would you even bother posting your response here if you think this is stupid!?

[Q?]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Source

Hahaha... qillaq@pigeon.com...

[Azyiu]

Lol

[SquidPuppet]

"Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment."

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

"Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment."

They should have sent the pigeon with a question