Pigeon Beats Rural Broadband In File Transfer Challenge

The sad state of rural broadband in the UK has been starkly illustrated in an experiment that saw a pigeon beating a computer in a file transfer challenge.

The idea behind the experiment was to highlight the broadband inadequacies in rural areas. A computer connected to the Internet at a farmhouse in Beverley in Yorkshire attempted to upload a five minute video (300MB worth) to the Internet using their local broadband connection, before the pigeon made a 75 mile journey to its home in Lincolnshire carrying a memory card with the same video attached to its leg.

Rory the pigeon started its journey and the upload was initiated at the same time. The pigeon made the journey in just 80 minutes. Sadly, the computer only managed to upload 24 percent of the video by the time Rory reached home.

Rory vs ADSL

A BBC video of the experiment can be found here.

“This is the UK. It should be well-connected but around a third of homes still can’t get broadband,” said Trefor Davies, the stunt’s organiser. Davies is also co-founder of business ISP Timico and serves on the board of ISPA (Internet Service Providers’ Association).

It is thought the farm was using a broadband connection of around 100 to 200 Kbps (kilobits per second).

This experiment mirrors that carried out in Durban, South Africa last year. That experiment saw Winston the pigeon take two hours to finish a 96km journey. In the same time just 4 percent of a 4GB file had downloaded.

BT Dismayed At Inaccuracies

Meanwhile BT told eWEEK Europe UK that it was “somewhat dismayed” to see that Davies’ claim on the BBC that “around a third of homes still can’t access broadband” was not challenged.

“Current broadband coverage of the UK is around 99 percent, which leaves some households with no access to a broadband service,” said BT. “It is estimated that there are 160k lines in the UK where excessive line length means broadband won’t work, that’s less than one percent.”

“We are working with Broadband Development UK to help find alternative solutions for households with no access to a broadband service,” it added.

The government plans to roll out 2Mbps broadband to all British homes by 2015, three years after its original 2012 deadline. And in August the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) criticised the government’s U-turn on plans to review the way next-generation broadband networks are taxed as indicating a “complete lack of understanding” of what is needed to develop the broadband market.

Meanwhile an Ovum analyst has taken the government to task over the lack of cohesive thought behind solving the urban-rural digital divide. “The UK favours a market-driven approach rather than a radical national programme to roll out high-speed broadband on an equivalent basis,” said Ovum senior analyst Charlie Davies. “This increases the pressure for governments, regulators, operators, local authorities and other stakeholders to work together to come up with badly-needed, new and fresh solutions.”