Pigeon vs Telkom - www.pigeonrace2009.co.za

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elroc

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Just got a mail at work on this topic, and seems some-one is going to hit old Telkom hard!

Essentially checking to see if a carrier pigeon can deliver 4 gigs of data faster than DSL line.

I think we can ll support this cause and spread the word, get some egg on Telkoms face

Also go check out facebook for Winston the Pigeon
 
Same concept as: I can run around the block quicker than sending an email with a 20Mb attachment to myself via dial-up....

Proves nothing.
 
It might not 'prove' anything, but it will hardly improve Telkom's perception in the public eye. They've apparently already been on the phone to the organisers asking for their circuit number so they can ensure an unimpeded connection.
 
Well, it proves your dial up is slower than international standard which could easily send that 20 meg attachement while your jogging around the corner.

And yes it's a PR stunt, but the purpose of kicking the telecoms operators in the public eye is something I can whole-heartedly support.
 
I'm no telkom fan, but this (as mentioned), proves nothing. How do you determine what is a fair transit length? I can throw a 8GB memory stick from one end of the office to the other faster than what the office network could copy it. If I need the same 8GB on the other side of the world, it will take ages to physically ship, while I could copy the same amount of data to the others side of the world in 6 hours on our office network.
 
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my money is on the pigeon.

it does prove something:
it's faster to use a USB stick when copying AROUND the office. - easy.

just like this could prove that pigeon technology is faster than Telkom's Fastest ADSL
 
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Keeper said:
just like this could prove that pigeon technology is faster than Telkom's Fastest ADSL
Click to expand...

For a short distance. Do the same race between Johannesburg and London, and the results will differ.

The pigeon has massive latency, but also massive throughput. The packet size is also massive, meaning if the pigeon goes missing, you lose your entire transmission, and you have to resend.
SA ADSL lines have small packets, low latency, low throughput. If I lose one packet after an hour of transmission, I can resend the one packet in an instant.
 
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Transfer speed race: Telkom ADSL vs Pigeon with SD Card

Haven't seen this posted yet:

pigeonrace2009.co.za

Hi Guys/Gals

We are having a bit of fun at the expense of our favourite telecoms provider Helkom. Let me explain. We have satellite call centres which are connected via business ADSL’s to our main data centre. As usual these connections where very unstable and extremely slow. This caused a huge amount of frustration for us as we need to move voice logs(100’s of megabytes) a day up to our main databases for QA and legal purposes. Our company runs on sales and without voice logs we have no binding contract between us and the customer. So they are pretty essential.

Anyway I read a Aprils fools white paper about Avian carrier networks a couple of years ago. Basically it is a protocol that uses racing pigeons as a network layer. This got me thinking about how fast we can transfer the data by racing pigeon. I discussed this idea with my CIO one night having a couple of drinks. When we did the math we found out that we can transfer the data faster by pigeon for certain sites. So we made a project of it. Next week Wednesday is Pigeon VS ADSL day here at the unlimited world. We have the media involved so check the Sunday times for a article on this event.

Basically we will be flying a pigeon with a 4GB micro SD card from Howick to our central site in Hillcrest. We did a dry run yesterday. Here is the stats: Pigeon took 48 minutes to deliver the data. ADSL is still downloading. Telkom got hold of this via the media and is currently in a flat spin. We got a call from Telkom asking us for our circuit numbers so they can make sure we have good service.

Here is the best part. We spend +/- R 45000 a month just on rental for these lines. If we moved to the Avian Carrier Network we will be saving a whopping R 35 000 a month.

Check out the facebook group, do a search for Winston the pigeon on facebook. Also watch the local press for some tongue in cheek articles about our great Helkom.

Regards
Neil

PS: The Original White Paper is located here: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2549.html
 
Strange I did a search for pigeonrace2009 on the forums before I posted , the search must have missed it. Admins please feel free to remove this topic.

- twiga
 
Cost is the issue. Pidgeon = faster AND a lot cheaper (R9k pm, according to the other thread) as opposed to their current R45k pm ADSL setup and the pidgeons will be more reliable as well, assuming they have some redundancy.
 
twiga said:
Strange I did a search for pigeonrace2009 on the forums before I posted , the search must have missed it. Admins please feel free to remove this topic.

- twiga
Click to expand...

Don't worry... that happens to me all the time. The mods will just merge it for us. :)
 
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