Pigeon Carries Data 25 Times Faster Than South Africa’s Telkom

By Van / 44 comments

A South African information technology company chose a novel way to prove how slow the country’s leading Internet service provider Telkom was, they strapped a memory card to a pigeon and had a data transfer race.

Winston, an 11-month-old pigeon flew from Unlimited IT’s Pietermaritzburg offices to Durban, a distance of 80km. The flight took one hour and eight minutes.

When the time it took to transfer the data to and from the memory card was added to the flight time, the total was two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds. At completion of the pigeon-carried transfer, the Telkom download was only 4% of the way through.

[Reuters]

About the author: Van

Editor's Picks

NICO

4%, WOW, WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT, AND THAT FOR ADSL, WAY TO GO TELKOM!!!
NICO

4%, WOW, WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT, AND THAT FOR ADSL, WAY TO GO TELKOM!!!
Andy

Yeah… but how much data was it?

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

We have since learned that it was 4GB

Andy

Yeah… but how much data was it?

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

We have since learned that it was 4GB

Nick J

So what you’re saying is that the Internet would be better designed as a shipping service instead of a series of tubes?

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

No, what we are saying is that an avian data delivery system is more efficient than South Africa’s leading tube-based data delivery system.

http://www.peoplearesheep.com bryan

It’s Africa. Wtf kind of report is this. We all know africa is a 3rd world country with shity internet. Honestly 4gb of data over the internet per hour isnt bad. Do the math, thats 45 k a second. 15 times faster than dial up, and just about as fast as Verizon Wireless and AT&T aircard service. Next.

http://www.peoplearesheep.com bryan

Edit: I mean 4gb over the internet in 2.45 hours isn’t bad for a 3rd world country. At least they have a connection. That still equates to 15 k a second which just means they can’t play online games, but it is plenty enough to transfer text based documents. I don’t think Africa is worried about the internet when there country is war torn in every direction.

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

1. Africa is not a country, it is a continent comprised of many countries.
2. South Africa is not amongst the richest countries on Earth but it is far from being “third world”.
Nilloc

The 4gb file was only 4% complete after the pigeon delivery was finished. That’s just over 160 kb, or about 0.04 kb/sec. Pretty terrible by any standards.

shh.

so africa is a country. clever…
Google

are you retarded? africa is a fucking continent

Nick J

So what you’re saying is that the Internet would be better designed as a shipping service instead of a series of tubes?

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

No, what we are saying is that an avian data delivery system is more efficient than South Africa’s leading tube-based data delivery system.

http://www.peoplearesheep.com bryan

It’s Africa. Wtf kind of report is this. We all know africa is a 3rd world country with shity internet. Honestly 4gb of data over the internet per hour isnt bad. Do the math, thats 45 k a second. 15 times faster than dial up, and just about as fast as Verizon Wireless and AT&T aircard service. Next.

http://www.peoplearesheep.com bryan

Edit: I mean 4gb over the internet in 2.45 hours isn’t bad for a 3rd world country. At least they have a connection. That still equates to 15 k a second which just means they can’t play online games, but it is plenty enough to transfer text based documents. I don’t think Africa is worried about the internet when there country is war torn in every direction.

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

1. Africa is not a country, it is a continent comprised of many countries.
2. South Africa is not amongst the richest countries on Earth but it is far from being “third world”.
Nilloc

The 4gb file was only 4% complete after the pigeon delivery was finished. That’s just over 160 kb, or about 0.04 kb/sec. Pretty terrible by any standards.

shh.

so africa is a country. clever…

Rogier Maas

So what they’re saying it took almost an HOUR to copy 4GB of data to and from the stick?! What kind of computer did they use?!

..or did they calculate the time strapping the stick onto the bird, walk it outside and on the other side catch it, etc?

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

I think the latter. It was an end-to-end calculation.

Rogier Maas

So what they’re saying it took almost an HOUR to copy 4GB of data to and from the stick?! What kind of computer did they use?!

..or did they calculate the time strapping the stick onto the bird, walk it outside and on the other side catch it, etc?

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

I think the latter. It was an end-to-end calculation.

Valgard

*calculates* I believe thats about a 10 kbps transfer rate. which is barly above dialup.
Valgard

*calculates* I believe thats about a 10 kbps transfer rate. which is barly above dialup.
Capt Turk

Sadly, that is still faster than AT&T wireless Edge connections most of the time in the USA. lol!!
Capt Turk

Sadly, that is still faster than AT&T wireless Edge connections most of the time in the USA. lol!!
Stephan

This is a silly test. I can throw my flash drive to my neighbour faster than I can transfer the data via LAN.

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

Yeah, but can you drive it a hundred miles just as quickly?

Guestdood

uhm… yea.. actually you can. driving it is faster than throwing…. i think you are confused

Twitch

uhm, data transfer is mostly independant of distance. Its gonna take longer to drive a hundred miles at high speed than throw it a short distance at a low speed, but transfer speed is constant [/troll]

Stephan

This is a silly test. I can throw my flash drive to my neighbour faster than I can transfer the data via LAN.

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

Yeah, but can you drive it a hundred miles just as quickly?

http://dannyburton.wordpress.com/ dan burton

uber
http://dannyburton.wordpress.com/ dan burton

uber
Poot

4GB = 4,096MB = 4,194,304KB * .04 = 167,772.16KB
(2hr * 60mins/hour + 6) * 60 seconds/min + 57 seconds = 7617 Seconds
167,772.16KB / 7617 seconds = 22KB/second
Considering dialup is commonly 56KB/second, it’s about half the speed of normal dialup.

Most people with cable in the US can get anywhere from 1MB/s to 5MB/s (1024KB/s and 5120KB/s). America is known for having relatively slow internet compared to most of the first world. Usually speeds are limited by the upload speed of the server, rather than the download speed of the client. Since they had a dedicated server for this test, then if it were done in America at 3MB/s it would have taken 22.75 minutes.
Poot

4GB = 4,096MB = 4,194,304KB * .04 = 167,772.16KB
(2hr * 60mins/hour + 6) * 60 seconds/min + 57 seconds = 7617 Seconds
167,772.16KB / 7617 seconds = 22KB/second
Considering dialup is commonly 56KB/second, it’s about half the speed of normal dialup.

Most people with cable in the US can get anywhere from 1MB/s to 5MB/s (1024KB/s and 5120KB/s). America is known for having relatively slow internet compared to most of the first world. Usually speeds are limited by the upload speed of the server, rather than the download speed of the client. Since they had a dedicated server for this test, then if it were done in America at 3MB/s it would have taken 22.75 minutes.
Bryan

Actually, 56K is kiloBITS per second, not kilobytes per second. So 56K dialup is about 7 KB/s. Therefore, 22KB/s is just over 3 times faster.

Having lived in South Africa, that speed is fairly typical, but what they didn’t mention is the cost to transfer 4gb of data, the data caps are truly abysmal there.

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

Regarding the data caps, I’d believe it – Australia’s are equally ridiculous.

Bryan

Actually, 56K is kiloBITS per second, not kilobytes per second. So 56K dialup is about 7 KB/s. Therefore, 22KB/s is just over 3 times faster.

Having lived in South Africa, that speed is fairly typical, but what they didn’t mention is the cost to transfer 4gb of data, the data caps are truly abysmal there.

http://www.weinterrupt.com C. S. Magor

Regarding the data caps, I’d believe it – Australia’s are equally ridiculous.

Todd

That’s only if you ignore latency which is just as important, and often more important, than total throughput. Try having a two way conversation by pigeon and you’ll find it rather sluggish.