Remember how last month an enterprising South African used a carrier pigeon to transfer data, and it was faster than using his DSL connection? Oh, how we laughed and laughed. Well, turns out that our own broadband situation is similarly awful, with ABC program Hungry Beast putting Telstra’s broadband to test against a pigeon and a car. Guess which one was the slowest?
The show transferred a 700MB file using all three methods from Tarana in rural NSW to Prospect in western Sydney, a distance of 130 odd kilometres. It took the pigeon about an hour, the car about two and ADSL… well, let’s just say that Telstra didn’t quite finish the race, although when the process started it was apparently going to take somewhere between four and nine hours.
So while we wait for the NBN, maybe we should invest a bit in pigeon training?
Adam K
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 10:38 AMWe’re Telstra and we’re verrrrrrrry upset that the Government has the gall to produce a national FTTH network!
There’s nothing wrong with the system we have in place!
Dan
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 10:45 AMI think it should be pointed out that they were using MOBILE broadband and ADSL, neither of their connections were ADSL2.
The test was very mythbusters – not transparent or rigorous enough to conclusively say anything.
(plus, if you wanted the pigeon to win, just make the amount of data arbitrarily large, since the mass of the SD card won’t slow the bird down if it is loaded up with more and more data.)
Craig
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 11:48 AM@Dan I don’t think ADSL2+ would change the result all that much. Especially if I was the one downloading it on my ADSL2+ connection.
Of all the people I know running ADSL2+, there is only one who gets more than a 10Mbit connection. And he intentionally purchased his flat close to the exchange so that he could.
Ben Dy
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 12:11 PMThat would be because (in my experience) ADSL2 isn’t available in regional areas.
Not to mention ADSL2 is very dependent on distance from the exchange, in most cases any speed advantage ADSL2 would have would be neutered by this distance.
I also don’t think the data allocation of 700Mb was overly large. In my Sydney home ADSL2+ connection I could pull that down in no time. At my parents place in rural NSW, the ADSL connection would take several hours..
LOL @ matt
matt
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 10:55 AMyeah, but pigeons would have hella high latency! lets just say I wouldn’t wanna be playing counter strike via carrier pigeon.
also, did they have the right connection for the job? no good having a home style connection with shit upload rates, need proper server plan where upload matches or exceeds download rates.
these “tests” don’t really prove anything, fact of the matter is, I could live in japan (which has the best net), start an upload to my friend next door, and then take the 80GB file to him in person on a portable drive. which method is going to win? does it mean the net service is crap?
maybe these companies that are going to do this should just drive the data to where it needs to go! the net doesn’t work by magic!
ThePengwin
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 12:10 PM*sits at desk busily scribbling on a note*
haha ill have him now!
*pidgeon comes into window, with a note.*
*opens note, which reads “Boom! H34D5HOT!!”*
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Joedy
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 11:08 AMNo wonder, the upload limit of 340Kbps sucks, it would take 5 hours on a maximum sustained upload limit. I dont get why upload is so bad in this country. Even in FTTH housing estates the most anyone can get is 5Mbps up to a 100Mbps down. that is ridiculous
matt
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 11:39 AMthe telcos basically think that ‘home’ users don’t need to upload anything. “they just download stuff from the net” (yet more proof that they are stuck in the 90s)
thats why the upload rate is so poor, some ISPs even block certain server ports, like the windows file sharing ones, ftp and http as well sometimes.
even greater testament to the fact that they don’t think we upload is that at many ISPs, uploads are ‘free’.
you can get proper plans where uploads match download rates, but these are intended for businesses and thus usually cost a fortune.
Sam Testa
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 2:10 PM<3 Hungry Beast
Kieran Cummings
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 2:47 PMThe main issue with this segment on Hungry Beast was that, while funny/amusing, it was based on absolutely no research.
Firstly, as has been mentioned, latency was not taken into account. Big mistake there, seeing as most of the time when you are using the internet you are sending a LOT of small pieces of information regularly. Not one HUGE lump of information once.
Secondly, this failed to take into account distance. I could make it look even worse if I took a USB key with a movie to my neighbours. Effective throughput of approx 200mbps give or take 50mbps. Wow, that proves… nothing. Try to get a pigeon to travel between Australia and Iceland, or even Australia and the US.
Thirdly, they used the WORST ISP in Australia to test with. The reliability of Telstra’s data network is atrocious for residential customers.
I’m not defending our broadband network, however, if you are going to talk shortfalls, at least use real data and relevant test methodology. I like Hungry Beast, but they do tend to lack a lot of research methodology.
Mark
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 3:59 PMInternet access is horrific in Australia. It’s far too expensive, for something that just doesn’t perform. I’m stuck with satellite since our area has no other service whatsoever – ping time of 980ms… pretty much useless for games. And it has a tendency to sometimes timeout while transferring data, so you’ve gotta punch reload and start again. At least the government covered the installation which was good – i was stuck on dialup before – but there is definitely a lot of work to be done before Australian broadband is worldclass.
watson
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 9:46 PMIn my point of view “carrier pigeon” provides best services in Broadband
Laurence
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 10:31 PMMaybe Hungry Beast was cutting corners, ignoring the true facts and just trying to make interesting television but I think they were more trying to raise a point and educate people rather than blatantly attack Australian’s internet.
Sure anyone can walk next store with a portable hdd and copy 80 gigs faster than it would take to send it. But I think the point was that Telstra – Australia’s largest ISP only has ADSL in the country, our network is unreliable at best and the government needs to get their act together and fix our internet issue.
While using a carrier pigeon isn’t the solution it does educate more ‘non-internet’ people into the ongoing issue that is Australian’s horrible internet.
Let us remember Gizmodo’s post the other day regarding internet speeds vs pricing. http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2009/10/internet-speeds-and-costs-around-the-world-shown-visually/
theangryibis
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 9:30 AMSo let me get this straight: The carrier pigeon averaged 130km/h? Wow..