Bird beats broadband

 
Published: Thursday 15 October 2009

-- (Credit: REUTERS)Unhappy with broadband services? Try Winston. The 11-month-old pigeon took 68 minutes to transmit a 4 GB file over 80 km, from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, in South Africa. Downloading the data took another hour. All this while, South Africa's Internet supplier Telekom could supply only 4 per cent of the data.

The idea for the race came when Kevin Rolfe, who works at a Pietermaritzburg software firm, Unlimited IT, complained about the broadbandband speed of Telekom. He joked a pigeon would be faster and then decided to test his statement.

Winston has more than 6,000 fans on Facebook.

Subscribe to Daily Newsletter :

Comments are moderated and will be published only after the site moderator’s approval. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name. Selected comments may also be used in the ‘Letters’ section of the Down To Earth print edition.