by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Carrier pigeon beats South African broadband service and that by a very long shot.
Winston, the pigeon took two hours to carry the memory stick 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent just about sent 4% of the data.
The company that conducted the test did this in order to be able to complain as to bad service and such but there is a limit to what can be done with broadband (ADSL) depending on the wiring systems used and distance to telephone exchange.
In fact, unless you have rather high-speed, very high-speed, ADSL transmitting some GB over the wire does take an enormous amount of time for, as for instance in the case of the connection that I have, a 1MB (faster speed not possible as copper wire lines), the download speeds never exceed 120/122KB/s which means that downloading the ISO to a DVD, for instance has, once, taken a whole day, nigh on.
So, the problem is not only found in South Africa but also in the UK and let us not talk of the USA where many people still are nowhere near being able to get broadband.
Not all, as we can, yet again see, modern technology is superior to the old ways.
While it is true that a carrier pigeon can get lost, attacked by a bird of prey, shot by someone, or what-have-you, the fact remains that in some case such means of communications and transportation of information still has its uses.
And this, let me add, does not just apply to things such as the above matter but also to other things.
In many instances now horses are used again in forestry for the extraction of timber and many other old methods and technologies, combined with modern ways, are being used, including sailing ships again for certain cargoes.
So, in conclusion, let me suggest here that old and old-fashioned is not always out-of-date and useless.
© 2009
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