Pigeon Found to be Faster Than Broadband

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.

exe0

Distinguished
Sep 10, 2009
1
0
18,510
Broadband in South Africa sucks. It's expensive and slow. While Americans were getting upset about the possibility of getting capped by Time Warner,the average South African ADSL user has to live with having only 3GB per month. Most people can't even watch youtube without waiting forever for the movie to buffer. So even though this test may not prove anything real, the fact that someone would go through the trouble of using a bird instead of broadband just shows how much the broadband sucks.
 

tburns1

Distinguished
Jul 24, 2009
364
0
18,780
This is hilarious. Makes me think the sci-fi tech of Johnny Pneumonic had it right. And also, before anyone asks ...NO, the pigeon can't play Crysis.
 

HVDynamo

Distinguished
Feb 6, 2008
283
0
18,810
its entirely relative to the amount of data being transferred, If the File was 4GB and the bird that would relate to a about 1MB/s upload rate, but if you cut the data in half, it still takes the bird the same amount of time to get there, then you are looking at 512KB/s or so. If you keep halving the amount of data the bird travelling gets less and less efficient compared to the internet. Try sending the bird with the printout of a page of a word document, and try e-mailing it as an attachment at the same time. The bird stands no chance in that instance. Its basically the same thing as Chevrolet claiming a certain 230 miles to the gallon on the chevy volt, but only if you drive a certain distance, and on a full charge.
 

NivenFres

Distinguished
Sep 10, 2009
30
0
18,530
So that classifies Pigeons as UDP Datagram packets then. Not guarenteed delivery and possibly out of order if there were multiple packets.
 

Major7up

Distinguished
Aug 17, 2009
446
0
18,780

They could also try bouncing a laser beam off of a mirror on the moon to the other office.


And I dare not ask how long it would take for the receiving office to request a resubmission of a lost packet. though the order of the packets does not matter as they should be numbered. The transport layer (schmoe in the office) should make sure that it has all packets before attempting to assemble them. This is independant of the physical layer (the pigeon). Still, imagine what might happen to these packets that wouldn't happen to an electronic packet...like getting picked off by an eagle (if they have them there) or hawk, even an aircraft perhaps. Call it 'interference'.
 

mlopinto2k1

Distinguished
Apr 25, 2006
1,433
0
19,280
Am I the only one that see's the problem with the percentages? They said, it took the carrier pigeon 1 hour and 8 minutes to bring a USB stick and when it arrived, the file was only at 4% and that it would have taken another hour to finish the file transfer? Uhmmm.. huh??? I took 1 hour and 8 minutes to transfer FOUR PERCENT. How the hell is going to transfer 94% in one hour?
 

Major7up

Distinguished
Aug 17, 2009
446
0
18,780

you are not the only one, others have pointed that out above. But % aside, it is almost irrelevant. The point of the story is that the pigeon transferred the file faster regardless of the total time of the internet xfer. That is still one slow arse connection.
 

anhxeom

Distinguished
May 23, 2009
50
0
18,630
Wait....how far did the pigeon have to fly in this senario? There is a huge difference between flying to the next city and fly across the entire country! Sure a slow ISP will take an entire day to tranfer the file across the country, but for the pigeon, it might not even make it at all!!
 

Major7up

Distinguished
Aug 17, 2009
446
0
18,780

See my second post in this discussion...
 

keither5150

Distinguished
Sep 7, 2008
369
0
18,780
I have two computers in my house. One time I copied a full 4.7 gig DVD and walked it downstairs and put it in the other computer.......

I am also faster than broadband.

 

liemfukliang

Distinguished
Feb 4, 2008
152
0
18,680
If it is about upload than I bet Indonesia ISP still not in a good shape. Since it is transfering data from pc to pc, one must be upload and one download. That still got ages in Indonesia.
 

WheelsOfConfusion

Distinguished
Aug 18, 2008
705
0
18,980
It's like that old techie saying, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon loaded with data tapes." When comparing to intranets, I think the phrase for this kind of thing is "sneakernet."
 

r0x0r

Distinguished
May 9, 2006
1,005
0
19,280
[citation][nom]mlopinto2k1[/nom]Am I the only one that see's the problem with the percentages? They said, it took the carrier pigeon 1 hour and 8 minutes to bring a USB stick and when it arrived, the file was only at 4% and that it would have taken another hour to finish the file transfer? Uhmmm.. huh??? I took 1 hour and 8 minutes to transfer FOUR PERCENT. How the hell is going to transfer 94% in one hour?[/citation]

You ever seen the transfer bar when you transfer a large file in Windows?

"8 minutes remai-, no 2 hours remai-, no 10 seconds remai-, no 8 minutes again".
 

hemelskonijn

Distinguished
Oct 8, 2008
412
0
18,780
Who here would like to join in my pigeon protocol based IRCD ?

Dude that would be awesome ... and for sure cover the road in shit.
Wonder what actions i should take to prevent flooding!
 

ebattleon

Distinguished
Sep 19, 2007
43
0
18,530
The return of pigeon net Yeah!!

The truth is unless you have a lot of bandwidth really large files would have issues on a really busy WAN.
 

ptroen

Distinguished
Apr 1, 2009
90
0
18,630
Actually Nasa created a Internet protocol for deep space exploration a while back. I wonder if it could be used on earth on like AM radio or something. If so this could take alot of the load off the Internet by using torrents on this bandwidth. It's not like anyone expects their legal torrents to finish fast anyways.
 

rusabus

Distinguished
May 19, 2007
191
0
18,760
So, next time I go to play Zombie Panic online, I'll fire up my carrier pigeons rather than my Internet connection. I wonder what the ping time is like? :)
 

mayhemiam

Distinguished
Jun 9, 2009
8
0
18,510
Ok I live in Johannesburg, and let me tel you folks, it is not just the one biggest ISP that's so slow, its the same with any other ISP that offers ADSL to the public. The only reason for this is because every other ISP had to buy bandwidth from Telkom, they were the only ones who could supply other ISP with ADSL. So until our new Seacom kicks into gear we aint seeing any better results from no ISP. And by the way, Telkom is state owned, nough said.
 

mayhemiam

Distinguished
Jun 9, 2009
8
0
18,510
Ok I live in Johannesburg, and let me tel you folks, it is not just the one biggest ISP that's so slow, its the same with any other ISP that offers ADSL to the public. The only reason for this is because every other ISP had to buy bandwidth from Telkom, they were the only ones who could supply other ISP with ADSL. So until our new Seacom kicks into gear we aint seeing any better results from no ISP. And by the way, Telkom is state owned, nough said.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.