I think we’ve all had an experience where, thanks to some congestion on the Internet, that we’ve said something akin to, “Well, I could probably walk the file over there faster than this.”  Odds are, if you have South African ISP Telkom, that you are right.  Unlimited IT, an information technology company, found that out the hard way, as they used an 11-month-old carrier pigeon named Winston to deliver a data file from Pietermaritzburg to Durban.  With download, the transfer took about 2 hours.  After 2 hours, the Internet transfer was only four percent complete!  Carrier pigeons are faster than the Internet.

Unbelievable in this day and age, isn’t it?  You’d think that South Africa would have a better infrastructure than that, at least in the major cities.  I guess that the dot com boom happened and Telkom wasn’t ready.  Either way, the fact that a pigeon makes the 50-mile delivery faster than the local ISP means that you really ought to invest in carrier pigeons if you’re going to do any serious IT business in South Africa.

I remember when I was chained to dial-up modems for my web access.  When I got to college, with the high speed surfing there, I was blown away.  I never knew the Internet could be actually useful for something until then!  I can only imagine how the lights will come on for South Africa once they get more bandwidth.

Tags: carrier pigeon, pigeons are faster than the internet, South Africa, Telkom, SAPA, Winston, Unlimited IT, very slow internet, unusual technology news, Pietermaritzburg

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