ADSL Broadband: More details on ADSL vs. Winston

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 6 March 2011

Broadband is designed and intended to help people communicate faster around the world and for the most part this is possible. However, ADSL in South Africa is reported to be no faster than a flying pigeon. This statement is backed up by a test that was done by a Durban company. A pigeon named Winston was given the task of flying a 4Gb memory stick for a distance of sixty miles (about ninety six kilometers). Winston delivered the data in the same time that ADSL was able to transfer four percent of the data.

Telkom was quick to deny accountability for the slow speed and they reported that they could not explain why this was the case. The race was the brainchild of one of the staff members at the company. Winston the pigeon was charged with the task of flying from Howick to Durban according to news reports. The flight took sixty-eight minutes to deliver the memory stick and another hour to upload the data from the memory stick to the computer. In the same time the ADSL connection managed to upload only four percent of the data. The race was well publicized over then news any many people followed the progress of the race on social media networking sites.

It is possible to test the speed of broadband and results are not very good in South Africa. The speeds pale are reported to be slower when compared to speeds of broadband overseas. Some of the tests used are dubious according to two telecoms experts that are based locally. Broadband speed tests are designed to test how fast a file can be downloaded. Cache files will provide a certain measure of on net speed even though the user believes that he or she might be testing national or international speeds.

<< Previous    [1]  2  3    Next >>