Pigeon vs ISP

By Marilyn Terrell in Animals & Pets on Sep 10, 2009 at 10:08 am

carrier pigeon painting by Christina Lovering

carrier pigeon painting by Christina Lovering

Who’s faster at transferring data: a carrier pigeon or an internet service provider in South Africa?

In an experiment arranged by a frustrated IT company, an 11-month-old carrier pigeon named Winston delivered data 25 percent faster than South Africa’s leading internet service provider, named Telkom.

Winston, with a data card strapped to his leg, flew the 50 miles (80 km) from the offices of Unlimited IT near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban in one hour and eight minutes.

Including downloading, the data 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.

Internet speed is painfully slow in South Africa because of limited bandwith, but is expected to improve with a new 17,000 km underwater fiber-optic cable that will link southern and east Africa to other networks before South Africa hosts the soccer World Cup next year.

Collage painting “Wanderlust Carrier Pigeon” by Christina Lovering

Tags: carrier pigeon, internet service provider, South Africa

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James MacAonghus
Sep 10th, 2009 at 11:05 am
I think you mean: “an 11-month-old carrier pigeon named Winston delivered data 25 TIMES faster”
Booky
Sep 10th, 2009 at 11:27 am
James:
The bird took one hour and 8 minutes (68 min) while the data transfer was 2 hours and about seven minutes (127 min). That is not 25 times faster.
Jaycatt
Sep 10th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Well, as I heard somewhere: the fastest bandwidth is still a truckload of CDs.
Anke
Sep 10th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Booky, that “data transfer” that took 127 minutes is the transfer BY PIGEON, made up of flight time plus time to get the data off the chip the pigeon transported.
Zavatone
Sep 10th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
And they never said how much data is to be transferred so the test is rather meaningless. And the explanation is rather bogus because the date will be routed within South Africa so the speed of the connector lines to the rest of the world simply does not apply. Exceedingly shoddy reporting.
Alex
Sep 10th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
IP over Avian Carrier is also a celebrated Internet lore. From our article: 10 Things You Should Know About The Internet
OddNumber
Sep 10th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I’m not sure why they didn’t include a link above, but you can read more here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8248056.stm
OddNumber
Sep 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
It doesn’t provide the exact file size, but the memory stick was on 4GB, so it less than that.
Edward
Sep 10th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Physical transfer of data on a medium always wins this sort of race. The fiber optic cable will do nothing to improve connectivity within the country.
anon1
Sep 10th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
And now for extra credit, see if you can explain the difference between “bandwidth” and “latency”.
Alex
Sep 10th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Link added – thanks OddNumber!
Birdy1
Sep 11th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I think I will have to keep my internet connection for now…..as I cannot afford the bird food…
Sue Dunham
Sep 11th, 2009 at 7:30 am
“…the data took another hour to upload on to their system.”
WTF kind of crappy computer is that?
Gauldar
Sep 11th, 2009 at 9:11 am
@Sue Dunham

Probably the most common affordable one in Africa. Unfortunately pigeons do nothing to prevent lag in world of warcraft.
Kt D
Sep 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
What a great idea–the fact that this IT group actually did this experiment instead of just making threats or jokes is awesome. And then the pigeon was faster.
It is both hilarious and depressing. Hopefully, this statement will click with the S. African government and that they will actually attempt to do something about the awful internet/cable in the country.
I watched a short, well-made video on the whole pigeon affair at newsy.com. It’s worth checking out/commenting on if you have a couple of minutes:

http://www.newsy.com/videos/the_pigeon_and_the_internet

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