BusinessDay - Telkom ADSL speed beaten by pigeon

Telkom ADSL speed beaten by pigeon
Business Day Online	Published: 2009/09/09 11:53:40 AM

Homing pigeon Winston has made history by beating a Telkom ADSL line in delivering 4GB of data from Howick to Hillcrest, outside Durban in far less time than it takes to download the data using the state-run Telkom’s data network.

It took Winston 2 hours 6 minutes and 57 seconds, whereas the ADSL download was still under 5 % downloaded by the time the bird landed.

Winston took off from Howick after 10:00 this morning and travelled 80 kilometers, or 70 as the bird flies, to ensure the data arrived at it’s destination quickly.

Financial services company The Unlimited decided to test Telkom’s ADSL speed against World War I technology - the ancient technology won.

While the ADSL line was actually given a head start of almost half an hour, Winston still beat the service by 95%.

There has been no comment by Telkom.

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By: Bidnis man	On: Sep 9 2009 1:54PM
...so, if the pigeon wins, will Business Day cancel their Telkom lines and move over to pigeon technology?

By: cdnsignaller	On: Sep 9 2009 5:16PM
adsl at it's best is 3.5Mb/sec. Was the originating station within 5km of the central office? If they were trying to fire an adsl signal 80km, well, good luck. My bet will be on the bird.

By: uradick	On: Sep 9 2009 5:57PM
"adsl at it's best is 3.5Mb/sec. Was the originating station within 5km of the central office? If they were trying to fire an adsl signal 80km, well, good luck. My bet will be on the bird." trying to fire an adsl signal 80km??? whats the problem with that?

By: v3	On: Sep 9 2009 7:29PM
"There has been no comment by Telkom" They're trying to download it. ;)

By: CrazeM	On: Sep 9 2009 8:04PM
one for the pigeon... what next?

By: Brad324	On: Sep 11 2009 2:30AM
I can also walk my 80 gig harddrive across the street faster than I could send it with any internet connection. Why don't they try this test from New York to Hong Kong? My money is on the ADSL.

By: legup2p	On: Sep 11 2009 6:56AM
I sell pigeons cheap!

By: Beti	On: Sep 11 2009 9:37PM
Um, I'm not sure WWI technology qualifies as "ancient"....

Telkom ADSL speed beaten by pigeon

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