A pigeon equipped with 3 TB of flash drives beats a gigabit fiber connection in a data transfer race
A pigeon with a 3 TB flash drive attached to its back beats a gigabit fiber connection in a data transfer race, as a YouTuber tests out how fast broadband can be transported using the long-held pigeon vs internet debate. Armed with over 40 terabytes of storage, the pigeon outpaces ADSL service, delivering data over 60 miles faster than the internet – although it is unclear how much the bird was helped by its jet-assisted wings.
The video, from techtuber Jeff Geerling, is an update to the long-running pigeon vs internet data transfer debate, which has been around since people started making comparisons between the internet and physical transport methods in the late ’90s.
Geerling equips his pigeon with 1TB flash drives, and then races it against both a standard ADSL internet connection and a PiJeff – a jet-assisted pigeon. The internet wins over shorter distances, with the PiJeff having to land to swap out its storage devices. However, the bird evolves to win over the longer distances, with the internet only beating it over 5,000 miles.
Geerling admits that he could have done better with higher-capacity drives, but kept it consistent for the video. He also says that gigabit fiber will be “stuck” at a sustained transport speed of 75 MB/s, which is how fast the download speed is rated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
“Future hopes for broadband measured in petabits,” the video’s title concludes. Pigeons may not need flash drives in the future, but that’s how fast our internet connections are going to be.
Original Tech Nomad: Sinéad O’Hart
via
https://www.nextplaza.com/blog/pigeon-flash-drives-internet-fiber-transport-race-2023/
