South Africans Give up on ADSL, Turn To Carrier Pigeons

I would have sworn this was The Onion…

IPoAC was first “implemented” (meaning: they actually did it) by the Bergen Linux user group; they’ve sent nine pigeons, each carrying a single ping over the destination of about three miles, but they’ve received only four responses; quite a poor result.

Then, in 2004., a group of Israeli enthusiasts have sent three homing pigeons to a destination about 100 kilometers away, with each carrying 20-22 memory cards. The total amount of data transfered was 4 GB, and it took the pigeons below 4 hours, on average, to transfer it.

Finally, yesterday a company called Unlimited IT had sent a single 11-month-old pigeon, called Winston, from their offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card strapped to his leg. The result? Two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds; by that time, only four percent of the same 4 GB was transfered over the Telkom line.

Full story…