Pigeon flies past broadband in data speed race

[formercia]

16 September 2010 Last updated at 11:12 ET

Broadband is the most modern of communication means, while carrier pigeons date back to Roman times.

But on Thursday, a race between the two highlighted the low speeds of rural broadband in the UK; the pigeon won.

Ten USB key-laden pigeons were released from a Yorkshire farm at the same time a five-minute video upload was begun.

An hour and a quarter later, the pigeons had reached their destination in Skegness 120km away, while only 24% of a 300MB file had uploaded.

--snip--

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11325452

[Jackpine Radical]

1. But how are they going to enforce

pigeon neutrality?

[drmeow]

4. LOL eom

[EOTE]

2. Broadband?

By my calculations, the video uploaded at about 17KBps . That's only slightly better than 56k dialup, I don't see how that could be considered broadband.

[jayfish]

3. I think that's the point. -NT-

[EOTE]

5. But how can it be called broadband?

I know that there's been different criteria as to what exactly constitutes "broad"band as opposed to narrowband, but I've never heard 17KBps upstream considered broadband before.

[jayfish]

7. Exactly. -NT-

[uponit7771]

6. 300 megs?!?!

[Regret My New Name]

8. 300 Megans to be exactly exact.

They were going to go with Teras instead, but this joke is really lame so I'm going to shut up.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

9. Carrier Pigeon with QoS

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2549.html

learn it, know it...love it...

sP

[formercia]

10. Love it

Geek humor. :rofl:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

12. yeah...there is also an RFC about Spanning Tree

written by Radia Perlman...it's a poem...

Algorhyme

I think that I shall never see
a graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
is loop-free connectivity.
A tree that must be sure to span
so packet can reach every LAN.
First, the root must be selected.
By ID, it is elected.
Least-cost paths from root are traced.
In the tree, these paths are placed.
A mesh is made by folks like me,
then bridges find a spanning tree.

Radia Perlman

sP

[formercia]

13. I'll keep you a seat at the Routing Table.

:hi:

[RandomThoughts]

11. Was it an african or european pigeon?

:)

[Ezlivin]

14. The swallow may fly south with the sun

or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?