South Africa to Ditch Broadband, use Pigeons instead

cherryghost · 10-09-2009 1:08pm #1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8248056.stm

A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom.
Winston the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data.

Now THAT is slow. Feel privelaged with your mobile broadband and your dial up!

Jesus Wept · 10-09-2009 1:10pm

Quicker than dialup.

tman · 10-09-2009 1:13pm

2 hours to upload ~160MB... On a business connection???
You would have expected somewhere as built up as that to have real internet connections by now

smellslikeshoes · 10-09-2009 1:14pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

pickarooney · 10-09-2009 1:32pm

I have a client in SA who needs to download upgrades to his software every couple of months. He downloads it to His Jo'burg branch and then flies to Cape Town and Durban with a USB stick in less time than it takes to download a second time to the other branches.

There is a massive project underway to bring optic fibre to all of Africa (from the middle east). It's got as far as Kenya and should be availalbe to most of Southern Africa shortly, but the local ISPs are all refusing to take it on as they can absolutely shaft customers with their ****ty speeds, low caps and extortionate per-gig rates.

So birds would actually be a realistic alternative.

netwhizkid · 10-09-2009 1:34pm

SouthAfricaoffline forum tbh

syklops · 10-09-2009 1:58pm

cherryghost wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8248056.stm

Now THAT is slow. Feel privelaged with your mobile broadband and your dial up!

God I hope Eamon Ryan doesnt see that.

Capt'n Midnight · 10-09-2009 2:44pm

This is even faster http://www.notes.co.il/benbasat/user/snail.JPG

South Africa to Ditch Broadband, use Pigeons instead

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