FRUSTRATED IT workers
Workers at a South African information technology company this week proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country’s leading ISP.
Africa’s largest economy has poor internet speed and connectivity – and high costs – because of a bandwidth shortage.
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km from Unlimited IT’s offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to its leg.
The transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds – including downloading from the pigeon’s card.
During that time, only four per cent of the data was transferred using a Telkom line.
