Pigeon Turns Out To Be Faster Than S. African Net 406
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the fast-and-pigeon-fast dept.
from the fast-and-pigeon-fast dept.
inject_hotmail.com writes "The results are in: it's faster to send your data via an airborne carrier than it is through the pipes. As discussed Tuesday, a company in South Africa called Unlimited IT, frustrated by terribly slow Internet speeds, decided to prove their point by sending an actual homing pigeon with a "data card" strapped to its leg from one of their offices to another while at the same time uploading the same amount of data to the same destination via their ISPs data lines. The media outlet reporting this triumph said that it took the pigeon just over 1 hour to make the 80km/50mile flight, whereas it took over 2 hours to transfer just 4% of that data."
Pigeons RULE! (Score:4, Funny)
Suck it, non-pigeons.
But it still does not answer the question (Score:3, Funny)
What's the speed of an unloaden African swallow?
Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Funny)
Cloud computing (Score:5, Funny)
This give a new meaning to "cloud computing". Just look at the clouds to see the results coming in!
Take that! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Funny)
Not only that, but his assistant kept touching my wife's ass, and after he wrapped up his sales presentation and left, we noticed all the silverware was gone. I'd advise all to keep well away from these carrier pigeon vendors, even if they seem slick.
Its official... (Score:5, Funny)
Pigeons Vs. The Clacks (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Loss (Score:3, Funny)
You mean hawks?
Re:Loss (Score:5, Funny)
The carriers have an intrinsic collision avoidance system, which increases availability.
Because IP only guarantees best effort delivery, loss of a carrier can be tolerated. With time, the carriers are self-regenerating. Audit trails are automatically generated, and can often be found on logs and cable trays.
Re:But it still does not answer the question (Score:4, Funny)
The european swallows what?
Loads.
Re:Pigeons RULE! (Score:4, Funny)
If you're asking for me to pay the up front fee, I will do so. Via avian carrier. A recent experiment shows that it's more effective than internet based communications.
Haha (Score:3, Funny)
50 Win points (TM) to whoever tagged this "half-duplex"
Re:Pigeons RULE! (Score:5, Funny)
For the love of God, just don't try to send any data throgh it's secure socket...
Re:Take that! (Score:5, Funny)
It's the logfiles!
Re:Loss (Score:1, Funny)
Re:This is useless reporting (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yes, if latency is not a factor (Score:5, Funny)
Well, yeah, you're not likely do do VoPTP (Voice over Pigeon Transfer Protocol) or play an online game using pigeons as packet carriers. The latency is bad. But this was a POC (Pigeon of Concept) that will lead to an RFC (Request Flying Carrier) and eventually it will go Beta (Birds Enabling Telecommunications Applications).
Hawks (Score:5, Funny)
A major source of packet loss...
Telkom could not immediately be reached... (Score:4, Funny)
From the article:
Well, that's because you used email. If you'd sent it pigeon post, it would have got through!
Oh, the irony... (Score:2, Funny)
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Patent application granted to "Telkom Communications" for a "method for transmitting data via avian carrier", even though lots of prior art exists.
not standards compliant (Score:1, Funny)
obviously, this setup does not conform to RFC1149
An unfair comparison (Score:5, Funny)
I fear that this might have been an unfair comparison, though. The pigeon was, after all, dedicated to only that one transfer.
For a more apples-to-apples comparison with most companies' networks, the pigeon should also be transporting:
- a porn DVD or two
- half the collection of lolcat movies on youtube
- and half the collection of funny clips
- a periodic refresh of Slashdot, in 1 second intervals.
- an IRC session on sexnet for the network admin. Logging connections doesn't apply to him, after all. You can contact him under the nickname Linda1991 faster than through the internal channels.
- a couple of managers' correspondence with the distressed widdow of a nigerian prince. Hey, they're only trying to help her.
- a trojan download or two, from those guys in marketing who got admin rights on their computer because they can't work without it. And now can't work without the latest animated gizmo off www.i-pwn-your-machine.ru.
- the keylogger traffic in the other direction from the couple more who already downloaded it.
Re:In defense of the cable... (Score:2, Funny)
so you just have one pigeon from the other office boxed up with your memory stick. the first pigeon arrives, you take the other office's pigeon out of the box, take the memory stick, put in a new memory stick, put your pigeon in the box, attach the box to the previously boxed pigeon, and send him back from whence it came.
Re:In defense of the cable... (Score:3, Funny)
What if you just strapped one pigeon onto another pigeon? Each pigeon goes one direction. Thus if we strap two pigeons together we have a bidirectional avian connection. The future is now.
Re:An unfair comparison (Score:4, Funny)
If your network uses 4 GB packets, I fear that you might not get much advanced out of the whole packet switching concept :p
I think you trailed off there... (Score:2, Funny)
Then your fired.
My fired what?
Re:Pigeons RULE! (Score:3, Funny)
I must applaud the IT company for trying out a 'green' alternative to large volume data transfer, but I wonder how long it will take for Telkom to get new legislation passed that will outlaw this form of data transfer.
What... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:An unfair comparison (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely. The air is just one big tube.
However, I wonder if it would be faster to just dump a bunch of carrier pigeons on a truck instead and transfer the data that way?
Re:Pigeons RULE! (Score:1, Funny)
Am I the only person who looks at that and the only thing I see is "tits"?
Not the first time this has been done. (Score:2, Funny)
We recently ran a similar experiment at work where we took 2 copies of a 50 page document and asked one student to scan and email it to the neighboring desk, and we got another student to hand deliver the second copy over the same distance.
The results were startling.
We have now opted to remove all computer equipment from our offices as we consider them inferior to manual transfer of information.
Re:Pigeons RULE! (Score:4, Funny)
Pigeons are a series of tubes.
Re:Pigeons RULE! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:An unfair comparison (Score:3, Funny)
Sure you can send more packets but you're still getting a 7200000ms ping.
Good luck finding a Quake server which won't kick you.