Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Pigeons' Bandwidth Advantage Quantified

Posted by timothy on from the breed-knoppix-pigeons dept.

An anonymous reader submits "A well documented test took place in the north of Israel, in presence of several dozen Internet geeks and experts. During the test, 3 homing pigeons carried 4 GB (gigabytes) for 100 km distance, achieving, what apparently looks as pigeons' world record in data transfer to a given distance. Bandwidth achieved by the pigeons was 2.27 Mbps...Transferring a similar volume of information through a common uplink of ADSL line would have taken no less than 96 hours..."

4 of 462 comments (clear)

  1. It begins... by stevenbdjr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it already April 1st somewhere?

    1. Re:It begins... by Mr.+Sketch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Slashdot is on GMT and this was posted at 22:58 GMT and right now it's 23:22 GMT so we still have a few more minutes before official April 1st as far as Slashdot is concerned. However, it is already April 1st where the story originated (Israel).

      --
      Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
  2. Re:My car is better by DrWhizBang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can throw 10,000 DVDs in my trunk, and drive 100km in an hour

    How long does it take you to load 10,000 DVDs in your trunk? Not to suggest that you still wouldn't beat the pigeons, but I don't think your time would be as good as you are hoping.

    Would that be considered "great bandwidth"?

    Yes, but that latency would not be considered so great.

    Besides, if they can use 3 pigeons, why not compare it to 3 DSL lines?

    You could, or you could compare one pigeon with dial-up. Or you could compare with an 18-wheeler instead of the trunk of your car.
    Lighten up - this is a great hack! And better than another SCO story.

    --
    Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
  3. Re:latency v. bandwidth by EvanED · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you were sending the pigeons back and forth, and you had a finite number of them, then doubling the distance would halve the bandwidth. The pipe capacity would actually stay the same no matter what the distance; you have the same number of pigeons.