How Fast is Your Internet?

A couple of weeks ago, Larry at Sandwalk posted the results of an internet speed test on his blog. If he was living in South Korea, Japan or Sweden his results would probably be quite different - these countries are the top three in terms of average internet speed. (The USA ranks 28th, no word on Canada) Likewise, if he lived in South Africa, we may still be waiting for that post to appear.

Earlier this month, a carrier pigeon was used to transfer data faster than South Africa's leading internet provider, Telkom. The bird successfully flew a data card 80km to it's destination in 1 hour, 8 minutes. Transferring the 'conventional' way, including download, took 2 hours, 6 minutes and 57 seconds - a time which apparently only accounted for 4% of the data.

Strangely, CPIP (carrier pigeon internet protocol) data transfer isn't a new idea. It started as an April Fool's joke almost 20 years ago, and the first actual implementation happened in 2001.

No word on how to adapt avian carriers for bittorrent distribution. If only those massive flocks of passenger pigeons hadn't gone extinct.