Carrier Pigeon Beats Internet in South Africa
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Not quite - in 2hrs 8mins they had managed to up and download just 4% of the 4Gb file - that's a speed of very roughly 140Kb/s. To be honest, that's a pretty standard upload speed for 2Gb-speed internet over here (or at least it was a couple of years back).Treblaine said:
My problem would be with it taking them a whole HOUR merely to get the 4Gb file off the data stick - goddamn must their computers be slow :O
One of the things I remember from a college networking class was to calculate which would be faster: transferring a certain amount of data to an offsite facility some distance away by a dedicated leased data line, or by copying the data to magnetic tapes, throwing the tapes into the back of a station wagon, and driving it. Naturally I forget the specific numbers used, but the answer was that the station wagon was much faster, even when the distance between sites was significant.
The issue is, bits are sent over a network serially, whereas with a "low-tech" physical transport solution, all the bits travel simultaneously in a single "packet". If you can load up enough data on that "packet" at once, it'll outperform any network you have.
This pigeon-net may have been good for drama, but as Treblaine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.140854.3160540] calculated above, the same experiment could "prove" how slow the internet is in most of the rest of the world. For that matter, if you managed to get thirty-one 32GB SD cards to go by pigeon (might need a couple more birds), you'd surpass gigabit ethernet speeds.
What others have pointed out, though, is that networks do a lot better with smaller data packets at a lot lower latency. You can play real-time games because they send (relatively) very small packets of data that arrive very quickly. Also, while you may not be able to download an entire movie in seconds, you can start watching it very quickly while the rest of it arrives, as opposed to having to wait for the single shipment with all the data. They're also fault-tolerant -- if there's a delay in the network, part of the file may get delayed or require retransmitting. If your van gets a flat tire or your pigeon is eaten by a cat, your entire file is lost, and you may not know it until it doesn't arrive at the expected time.
tl;dr version: Cute story, but it doesn't prove what they want to prove.
The issue is, bits are sent over a network serially, whereas with a "low-tech" physical transport solution, all the bits travel simultaneously in a single "packet". If you can load up enough data on that "packet" at once, it'll outperform any network you have.
This pigeon-net may have been good for drama, but as Treblaine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.140854.3160540] calculated above, the same experiment could "prove" how slow the internet is in most of the rest of the world. For that matter, if you managed to get thirty-one 32GB SD cards to go by pigeon (might need a couple more birds), you'd surpass gigabit ethernet speeds.
What others have pointed out, though, is that networks do a lot better with smaller data packets at a lot lower latency. You can play real-time games because they send (relatively) very small packets of data that arrive very quickly. Also, while you may not be able to download an entire movie in seconds, you can start watching it very quickly while the rest of it arrives, as opposed to having to wait for the single shipment with all the data. They're also fault-tolerant -- if there's a delay in the network, part of the file may get delayed or require retransmitting. If your van gets a flat tire or your pigeon is eaten by a cat, your entire file is lost, and you may not know it until it doesn't arrive at the expected time.
tl;dr version: Cute story, but it doesn't prove what they want to prove.
Yeah, I just realised that too late. The way it was phrased it was not too clear but I couldn't be bothered changing it.Wicky_42 said:
Still, that means South Africa's internet speed is only about 172kbps. Similar to what my dad says he gets in Nigeria.
And an hour to upload 4GB from a USB Flash drive of all things?
I have an entry level Laptop and I clocked 1 min 40 sec to upload 700MB to USB flash drive = 9 min 45 sec for 4GB
Transfer USB-stick to Comp: 700MB in only 45 sec = only 4 and a half minutes to transfer 4GB
So this article seems pretty fishy, even if the info is sourced from the BBC, why the hell is their computer reading data off a USB stick at such painfully slow speeds? I mean you can play a film directly off an external HDD even via USB, that needs a really fast transfer speed.
I mean 9 megabits/sec download speed. Even the very first Compact Disks were not that slow.
Still can't tell a lot from that though - my real download speed might be 6Mbps, but my upload is only 0.84Mbps. That's only 5 times faster than the African's speed. Unless the Africans were uploading the data from a dedicated, supposedly high-bandwidth server I'm not surprised it took so long for the transfer - you try uploading a 4Gb file to the internet and see how long it takes. Standard internet services generally have piss-poor upload speeds (in the UK at least :/ )Treblaine said:
I agree that the USB speed is definitely fishy - did they have a break for lunch before they plugged it in or something? lol...
Damn, that's another thing this article fails to mention, exactly how the data was uploaded or transferred, even if it was via a torrent or what?Wicky_42 said:
Here is what the BBC article exactly says:
"The firm said Winston (the bird) took one hour and eight minutes to fly between the offices, and the data took another hour to upload on to their system."
That's just... what the hell is going on? I guess it must be a memory stick as earlier it said:
"Winston took off from Unlimited IT's call centre in the town of Howick to deliver the memory stick to the firm's office in Durban."
Which kind of implies that the data was transmitted from the same location and that a dedicated server might have been used, it's not just someone's house, but the lack of specifics is so fishy.
This isn't a real tech story. No one can draw any conclusions about the tech involved, this is just another stereotype-reaffirming "Africa is crap" story that sells so well plus a popular but hackneyed narrative of the "brave little animal" trope that the tabloids love so much, why the BBC is coving it I don't know. Maybe all the smart reporters are in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Throttling, the isp doesn't wanna have to work so hard to maintain their servers, or even spend money to get new ones.SICK0_ZER0 said:
Was one of the recommendations that of changing carriers? "Don't like our business? Try someone else! Oh wait, there is no one else! HA HA"Malygris said:
This is a strong argument to just shipping data overnight by usb drive. It's probably even less risky.
Ha! That's too perfect...
Speaking of SLOW, this story reminded me of the following fact which I will now share with the world:
I live in Edmonton Alberta, A city with the dubious distinction of having THE worst bus service in all of North America, if not the world. (Someone did a study and big surprise, we came in LAST. Even Mexico has better bus service than us.) Case in point: I can get downtown from my home on the south side in 25 minutes on my bike, just over an hour if I walk, or 1 1/2 hours if I take the bus.
Recently the city purchased a ridiculously expensive amount of new Hybrid buses to replace the aging fleet. Yeah, new buses. That'll help.
Ahh. I needed to vent a little there, thanks for listening.
GO WINSTON!
Speaking of SLOW, this story reminded me of the following fact which I will now share with the world:
I live in Edmonton Alberta, A city with the dubious distinction of having THE worst bus service in all of North America, if not the world. (Someone did a study and big surprise, we came in LAST. Even Mexico has better bus service than us.) Case in point: I can get downtown from my home on the south side in 25 minutes on my bike, just over an hour if I walk, or 1 1/2 hours if I take the bus.
Recently the city purchased a ridiculously expensive amount of new Hybrid buses to replace the aging fleet. Yeah, new buses. That'll help.
Ahh. I needed to vent a little there, thanks for listening.
GO WINSTON!
