Pigeon faster than broadband

Get the right proportions in place, and you can do that anywhere in the world. Try downloading 1000 movies from iTunes (each about 1GB) - it'll easily take many days on your average broadband. On the flip side, burn them onto 25GB Bluray discs (you'd only need 40 of them - a single stack of discs a few inches high) and mail them next day express, and they'll get there faster.

Of course, being beat by a pigeon must really hurt someone's pride over there :-p

 

How long would it take to transmit 4 GB over the typical U.S. broadband connection? My upload speed is about 8.5 Mbps. (Up from 1 Mbps with my older modem.) Not sure how that translates to GB/hr.

I think 8 Mbps = 1 MB/sec = 3.6 GB/hr???
so 1 Mbps = 450 MB/hr??? Or 22.5% of the stick in two hours???

At my location, the best available DSL is far slower. But a trained pigeon will only fly to one pre-defined home location from anyplace within the territory it knows. Then it must be transported to its sending location. It will not fly out from its home. Internet connects any two points in the world that have internet service.

And the pigeon can get intercepted by a hawk or other raptor.

The term "broadband" is very loose. So-called "satellite broadband" is hardly better than dial-up. My old modem (6.25 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up) and a T1 line are both considered "broadband," as is the aforementioned satellite internet.

 

If only the pigeon had 4 gb between its ears.

This story reminds me of a person who used to load up his bag with data tapes and pedal for hours across the city, with a transfer rate hundreds of times faster than the computers of the time.

No, it wasn't me.

 

Bsasically the plot for the movie Jonny Mnemonic is a futuristic update of this.

 

That is the problem right there. For example, the Canadian government, along with some Provinces, funded "broadband" deployment a few years ago.

To keep costs down, they defined "broadband" as 640 kbps to 1.5 Mbps, max. So they got service installed that was already obsolete, compared to offerings in other countries

Much like how cellular phone service in Canada is among the most expensive in the Western world, and among the slowest and most spotty.

A lot of folks don't know enough about the technology to ask the right questions, and to put the service provider on the spot

 

[sound of Jayman on all fours, kissing the carpet, thankful he is happily single]

 

Does the pigeon do packet filtering? Does the pigeon threaten to revoke your service if you use too much bandwidth on an "unlimited" broadband account? :madgrin:

 

ound:ound:


Yeah... it was a race... not a fair one... kinda like comparing a top fuel dragster to a enduro bike on a twisty trail over the ridgeline...


Still funny though.

 

I would believe the OP if they used the BB service I use. COM***t. That is, when it works at all. Oh, and I get the privilege of paying $62.23/mo for the abuse. Their retort is if I bought their 'tripple play' I would save. As if I would trust my 3 phone lines to a CO who is offline so much. In Africa I could feed a family of 4 for a month for less, AND they could own the pigeon communication network too! Monopolies are criminal, but prevalent here in the coast.

 

Another satisfied Comcast customer! :madgrin:

 

I go to wilderness hiking lodges far from any cell phone service. But at one of them, the cook runs up one of the local mountain peaks, from which he can get service and phone his family. He makes a 2-hour round trip, running all the way, between breakfast and afternoon snacks, out of a hike that takes me six hours.

I get very good service from Comcast here. Their email server was no good, so I never used it, preferring instead a web-based email. But they are seldom down, and I get good customer service when I do have problems. With my new modem I get 28.5 Mbps down and 8.5 Mbps up, though I'm only paying for something like 12 down and 2 up. The best Qwest can give me on DSL is 1.5 Mbps down.

I think I pay around $55/month. It would be a little cheaper if I had cable TV also, but why pay to have electronic excrement delivered to your home?

 

Yeah, but he's only carrying a phone, and does it every day. The more you do, the more you're able to do.

 

Not every day, but two or three times a week, when he has enough free time in the middle of the day. But he's half my age, and fitter. He does carry a pack, though. You'd be stupid not to. And a walkie talkie for emergencies.

From time to time you see people running wilderness trails. It takes stronger legs, heart, and lungs than I have.

But at the same lodge, when they hire a new guide, the owner will take the new guide out and run all the trails, so the guide will know them. I think it takes them a couple of days to run all the trails. Maybe three.

A lot of the guests never hike to the end of any of the trails, because they stop so much. At least I've hiked to the end of all the trails (at this particular lodge) except the ones that are too technical or too scrambly for my capability or comfort level.

 

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet]Sneakernet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

The theoretical capacity of a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing"]Boeing[/ame] 747 filled with Blu-Ray discs is 595,520,000 Gigabits, resulting in a 37,034.826 Gb/s flight from New York to Los Angeles.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_wagon"]station wagon[/ame] full of tapes hurtling down the highway. —Tanenbaum, Andrew S. (1996). Computer Networks. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. pp. 83. ISBN 0-13-349945-6.

 

OK, but does broadband leave, ummmm, calling cards on statues, buildings, and passing cars on the way?

 

Nope, the "calling cards" get deposited on your computer hard drive instead. :madgrin:

 

Not on my PC's drive, but you may want to check the link I posted here for your Mac. :fish:

http://priuschat.com/forums/freds-h...le-going-announce-sept-9th-13.html#post955543