Friday 17 September 2010

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's broadband

OK so there was an interesting story in today's paper about a bunch of egg heads who held a race between rural broadband and a carrier pigeon.

Forgetting this challenge was quite obviously stolen from Top Gear, I would still rather download something on a slow internet connection than entrust my data to a flea-ridden flying cat burger.

Firstly, there is the issue of security. A pigeon is likely to get eaten or shot. It's even more likely to fly into my patio window like all the other pigeons seem to do. This would leave the data it was carrying extremely vulnerable. Even if it managed to reach its destination, there is a very good chance that the USB stick would arrive covered in pigeon poo.

Now, this stunt was organised by Tref Davies, who is the co-founder and technology director of business ISP Timico who, ironically, supply our broadband service and host our servers. The result of this test leaves me slightly worried about what effect it's going to have on our service. Will they start sending invoices via carrier pigeons? Are they planning to power their server farm with hamster wheels?

Read the story in today’s Telegraph Online