News Yes, a Pigeon is Still Faster than Gigabit Fiber Internet

[Admin]

A decade ago, a pigeon with a 4 GB memory stick outran an ISP’s ADSL service. A 2023 rematch features a bird with 3 TB of flash drives vs gigabit internet.

Yes, a Pigeon is Still Faster than Gigabit Fiber Internet : Read more

 

[atomicWAR]

I can see it now. Buddies talking...

"I got fibre last week and I can download 2TBs+ a day no problem from my works server" says one.

"I can transfer 4 TB an hour from work." Says the other, "if you really want the best speeds you should of got some pigeons instead of fibre like I did."

First guy begins to cry...

 

[edzieba]

Good ol' RFC 1149.

 

[cleavet]

Long latency, though...

 

[bigdragon]

This pigeon test just tells me that "up to" speeds advertised by North American ISPs need to be banned. The ISPs advertise theoretical performance rather than anything achievable in the real world on their networks.

 

[BX4096]

I feel vindicated, as I've been using pigeons for data transfer and communication for decades and getting a lot of flak for it.

In fact, this message is written by a carrier pigeon drumming out the ASCII sequence by the Morse code. Only took him an hour or so. Beat that!

 

[JamesJones44]

This pigeon test just tells me that "up to" speeds advertised by North American ISPs need to be banned. The ISPs advertise theoretical performance rather than anything achievable in the real world on their networks.

IDK that you can say that universally. I live in San Diego and have Spectrum and I regularly get the 940 Mb down 40 Mb up from my ISP (ISP calls it 1 Gb, but fine print says 940/40). Downloading updates on Xbox and PS are typically in the 800-900 mbps range.

Some friends that live in the San Fran Bay Area with Comcast on the other hand, usually about 65% of advertised. So I think it really depends on the ISP.

Edit: Added a link to the speed test

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Use Speedtest on all your devices with our free desktop and mobile apps.

www.speedtest.net

 

[ElPsyKongroo]

Just subscribe to 10Gbps Internet.
Btw the video is wrong because he should count the time the pigeon go back.

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

Btw the video is wrong because he should count the time the pigeon go back.

Only if he wants to do a TCP/IP wingshake.

 

[hotaru.hino]

This pigeon test just tells me that "up to" speeds advertised by North American ISPs need to be banned. The ISPs advertise theoretical performance rather than anything achievable in the real world on their networks.

The problem with trying to advertise anything "real world" is it depends on a variety of factors, most of which includes how many people are trying to do something like downloading the entire internet (or more "realistically", a modern AAA game from Steam). ISPs don't install enough infrastructure to service everyone connected to it at the maximum speed, because it can be wasteful.

Maximum ideal/theoretical speed is the only thing they can definitively prove under legal scrutiny. And gathering data from customers regarding the actual bandwidth has a litany of privacy issues.

 

[TheOtherOne]

I know it's more for the laughs than actual comparison but they should've also counted the time it took the data to be copied first onto USB stick from HDD at the source and then also back from USB stick to the HDD at the delivery end. Using a network, you can transfer directly from HDD to HDD.

 

[USAFRet]

I know it's more for the laughs than actual comparison but they should've also counted the time it took the data to be copied first onto USB stick from HDD at the source and then also back from USB stick to the HDD at the delivery end. Using a network, you can transfer directly from HDD to HDD.

He did add in the transfer time.
"From this data point and adding the SanDisk flash drive transfer times, Geerling plotted a baseline 3TB transfer graph for the pigeon."

 

[tamalero]

I can see it now. Buddies talking...

"I got fibre last week and I can down 2TBs+ a day no problem from my works server" says one.

"I can transfer 4 TB an hour from work." Says the other, "if you really want the best speeds you should of got some pigeons instead of fibre like I did."

First guy begins to cry...

But that is for fixed specified data transfers and the pigeon source must have the data you wanted.
therefore the versatibility makes the pigeon unusable for modern usage other than maybe backup transfers and business to business stuff.

 

[ElPsyKongroo]

Only if he wants to do a TCP/IP wingshake.

I mean to be fair "internet" should be available to send data again. If the pigeon didn't go back you can't send more data.

 

[TheRealTachyon]

Interesting story actually. It makes you think about how we do business and move information. In many instances a few encrypted USB sticks in a courier pouch makes more sense than a file transfer. Especially when you consider how we still don't have good options for fast, simple, standardized, cross-platform transfer of large files.
Think about it. If you wanted to transfer a 3TB file from your iPad to your friend's Windows PC quickly and without installing new software or apps, how would you do it?
I'm not saying it can't be done, I could do it, but I am saying that it's certainly not a few clicks and a drag away especially for the average user.
I *should* be able to drag the file onto a name in my contact list and it's done.
But it's not anywhere near that simple.
I think that by the time your average office worker figured it out, the pigeons would be home having a beer.

 

[USAFRet]

Think about it. If you wanted to transfer a 3TB file from your iPad to your friend's Windows PC quickly and without installing new software or apps, how would you do it?

Currently, that is unusually large.
What would this 3TB file be?

 

[evdjj3j]

I feel dumber after reading this.

 

[atomicWAR]

But that is for fixed specified data transfers and the pigeon source must have the data you wanted.
therefore the versatibility makes the pigeon unusable for modern usage other than maybe backup transfers and business to business stuff.

It was only meant as a joke. I don't think anyone believes a pigeon is better than a fibre internet connection for daily use. But we can dream!

 

[jkflipflop98]

Just subscribe to 10Gbps Internet.
Btw the video is wrong because he should count the time the pigeon go back.

He was going for straight transfer speeds. . . not p(w)ing times.

 

[palladin9479]

Good ol' RFC 1149.

IPoAC wins everytime.

IP over Avian Carriers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But good god, that latency and packet loss..

Script started on Sat Apr 28 11:24:09 2001
$ /sbin/ifconfig tun0
tun0      Link encap:point-to-Point Protocol
          inet addr:10.0.3.2  P-t-P:10.0.3.1  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:150  Metric:1
          RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0
          RX bytes:88 (88.0 b)  TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)

$ ping -c 9 -i 900 10.0.3.1
PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms

--- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics ---
9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 3211900.8/5222806.6/6388671.9 ms


Script done on Sat Apr 28 14:14:28 2001

 

[gg83]

best article of 2023! one of the oldest forms of data transfer on the planet still beats the internet.

 

[gg83]

Currently, that is unusually large.
What would this 3TB file be?

an adult video collection obviously. jk

 

[apothercy]

Wait, pigeons can fly 60mph? Am I misunderstanding the "it flew one mile and got there within one minute" bit or am I underestimating pigeons?

 

[TheRealTachyon]

Interesting story actually. It makes you think about how we do business and move information. In many instances a few encrypted USB sticks in a courier pouch makes more sense than a file transfer. Especially when you consider how we still don't have good options for fast, simple, standardized, cross-platform transfer of large files.
Think about it. If you wanted to transfer a 3TB file from your iPad to your friend's Windows PC quickly and without installing new software or apps, how would you do it?
I'm not saying it can't be done, I could do it, but I am saying that it's certainly not a few clicks and a drag away especially for the average user.
I *should* be able to drag the file onto a name in my contact list and it's done.
But it's not anywhere near that simple.
I think that by the time your average office worker figured it out, the pigeons would be home having a beer

Currently, that is unusually large.
What would this 3TB file be?

Just using the sizes from the article.

 

[bit_user]

Not news. As long as the density of storage devices continues to increase at least as fast as practical end-to-end network speeds, pigeon, sneakernet, courier, etc. will continue to be superior alternatives, for sufficiently large amounts of data.

It's at least nice that they show the crossover points between the different methods.


BTW, Amazon has long adopted this general approach, for migrating large amounts of data to the cloud:

Offline Data Transfer Device, Petabyte - AWS Snowball - AWS

AWS Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport service that uses secure devices to transfer large amounts of data into and out of the AWS Cloud. Snowball addresses challenges like high network costs, long transfer times, and security concerns to migrate data as efficiently as possible.

aws.amazon.com