Broadband News

Carrier pigeons faster than rural broadband

Monday, 20 September 2010

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

A team of carrier pigeons have won a race against a rural broadband connection, delivering their memory cards faster than the file could be uploaded to the internet.

Ten pigeons, all carrying a video file on a memory card, were released from a Yorkshire farm last Thursday - reaching their destination of Skegness, 120 miles away, in less than one-hour 15-minutes.

During that time the five-minute video file only managed to upload 24% of the 300MB file using a rural broadband connection.

Campaigners said that the stunt highlighted the digital divide, claiming that broadband in some areas was still “not fit for purpose”.

“The farm we are using has a connection of around 100Kb to 200Kb," said Tref Davies, the stunt's organiser.

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

According to BT broadband (www.BT.com), 99% of the UK now has access to broadband internet, but BBC research last year showed that some three million homes around the country could not get speeds of up to 2Mb.

The main reason for such slow speeds is distance from the local telephone exchange; the longer a line gets, the slower the internet will become.

The Labour government had pledged to see all homes connected at speeds of at least 2Mb by 2012, but the new government has extended this deadline to 2015.

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