Bird beats broadband

:) I still believe that this is a case of the call centre company choosing the wrong access technology in the first place.

I can guarantee you that if they raced Winston against a real technology, they would lose, BADLY. Hell, race winston against a point to point 100mbit microwave link that you can buy from a number of providers and the bird will get owned.

Race winston and 5 other birds fitted with the biggest commercially available sd cards against me transferring the same data to London from our Durban POP and before the bird got a third of the way there I'd have the data in London.

This isn't about our capacity either, its about the fact that there are plenty of technologies available for commercial companies and they choose not to make use of them. And we go on about how expensive they are, I might point out that if you take a fiber wave even between very well connected points (like data centres in new york) it can cost you THOUSANDS of dollars a month, its simply not as cheap as everyone makes out. (Hell, leasing a dark fiber which is cheaper than leasing a wave because of equipment costs, that runs less than 10 kilometers, in new york between 111 8th and one of the other data centres, will set you back a few thousand dollars a month)
 
Well as a publicity stunt, they certainly got a lot off attention. This story has been carried on a number of international sites, including BBC and Endgadget.

Not sure if it really helps underline the real problems involved.
 
RaptorSA said:
Maybe you should remove that stick from your rump and see this situation for what it's supposed to be: freedom of speech against a company that's been sorely lacking in any customer satisfaction and quality of service. They pay R35K (R30K?) per month for those Telkom lines, not being able to upload 4GB in an hour or two is a disgrace... Why does someone always have to be such a sour grape when this entire situation is such a great way to raise awareness on the subject?!?!? :mad:
Taking life waaaaaay to seriously seems to be a South African trait these days.
Click to expand...
Actually as pointed out, the pigeon would have beaten most broadband services on the planet, because in general upload speeds on broadband packages are poor. And THAT is why it's a dumb publicity stunt.

I know it angers the "South Africa and Telkom sucks" brigade, but fact is this really is a pointless story. It will always be possible to physically transfer data more quickly than via network. It proves nothing. We all hate Telkom, but people have been annoying me in the office all day pointing out how hilariously poor Telkoms ADSL service is that it couldn't beat the pigeon, when it's a stupid comparison and the pigeon would have outflown services in many other countries.
 
TMoose said:
I know it angers the "South Africa and Telkom sucks" brigade, but fact is this really is a pointless story. It will always be possible to physically transfer data more quickly than via network. It proves nothing. We all hate Telkom, but people have been annoying me in the office all day pointing out how hilariously poor Telkoms ADSL service is that it couldn't beat the pigeon, when it's a stupid comparison and the pigeon would have outflown services in many other countries.
Click to expand...

I understand completely and agree this proves nothing, but it is a cool way for the uninformed to *get* the message. The *message* received is still true, even if the demonstration thereof doesn't exactly stand up.
 
noemfie said:
Very entertaining read , but I must say if Winston had to deliver data to London , he would lose I reckon :D
Click to expand...

But think of a 747 filled with 16G flash sticks to London. Bandwidth versus link speed. In the old days, they used to send reel tapes of usenet feeds to aussie before cables reached there.
 
Don't know why they praise the homing pigeon so much, 1h16min for 70km is quite avg => slow. Our Goldmine linage did that in ~1h05min on a poor day.

Winston = FAIL GENES
 
TMoose said:
people have been annoying me in the office all day pointing out how hilariously poor Telkoms ADSL service is that it couldn't beat the pigeon, when it's a stupid comparison and the pigeon would have outflown services in many other countries.
Click to expand...

Oh, I think it's a bit of Karma, actually. the same way that Telkom have been annoying me for years by telling me how great their service is and how they are always welcoming competition and looking for opportunities to be more competitive in their pricing. One good lie deserves another and as far as I'm concerned, this wrong makes a right. It also goes to show that everyone likes to see the little guy stick it to The Man. No-one cares if it's true, everyone likes a good David and Goliath story.

Try not to think of it in imperical technical terms, but rather consider the psychology of the hard-done-by South African consumer.

Juice
 
Juice said:
Oh, I think it's a bit of Karma, actually. the same way that Telkom have been annoying me for years by telling me how great their service is and how they are always welcoming competition and looking for opportunities to be more competitive in their pricing. One good lie deserves another and as far as I'm concerned, this wrong makes a right. It also goes to show that everyone likes to see the little guy stick it to The Man. No-one cares if it's true, everyone likes a good David and Goliath story.

Try not to think of it in imperical technical terms, but rather consider the psychology of the hard-done-by South African consumer.

Juice
Click to expand...

Eish!

Nevermind Hellkom being an embarrasment...the whole darned government is an embarrasment!
Eish! This TV on my desk he dont werk! Oh so is called a monitor! Eish! Whats that? I think everyone must have one it looks so nice! Can you fix it to show SABC? Ok I go for my 5 star free lunch now in my nice BMW you pay for and when I get back I will put my feet on my desk and watch this screen until I see it work. Why all these people shouting? My phone he werk but you can pay my bill so whats the problem here? Eish..I got to go for free supper at conference tonight..Maybe I take my Rolls Royce! This job is very hard!
 
http://www.techradar.com/news/intern...n-birds-634398

Virgin Media's 50Mbps broadband faster than all known birds
Forget that South African pigeon!

"On our service, that 4GB would take under 11 minutes to transfer," the Virgin Media rep proudly informed us. "For a pigeon to beat us, it would have to fly at nearly 330mph."


when is telkom going to realise that the ADSL in SA SUX!!!!! and it IS their fault!!!
 
midkemia said:
http://www.techradar.com/news/intern...n-birds-634398

Virgin Media's 50Mbps broadband faster than all known birds
Forget that South African pigeon!

"On our service, that 4GB would take under 11 minutes to transfer," the Virgin Media rep proudly informed us. "For a pigeon to beat us, it would have to fly at nearly 330mph."


when is telkom going to realise that the ADSL in SA SUX!!!!! and it IS their fault!!!
Click to expand...

+ ∞
 
midkemia said:
http://www.techradar.com/news/intern...n-birds-634398

Virgin Media's 50Mbps broadband faster than all known birds
Forget that South African pigeon!

"On our service, that 4GB would take under 11 minutes to transfer," the Virgin Media rep proudly informed us. "For a pigeon to beat us, it would have to fly at nearly 330mph."


when is telkom going to realise that the ADSL in SA SUX!!!!! and it IS their fault!!!
Click to expand...

At least in the UK there are staff from the ISP's who ARE active in forums such as these instead of hiding behind their monitors spying on us chuckling and singing along to the song 'I gonna nail you' or 'money money'!
 
I know that this is not a true test. However I am truly disgusted with so many people standing up for Telkom. *Including Myadsl btw*

Those of you can truly keep quiet and never complain about the internet speeds in South Africa again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X