Loading ...On Wednesday September 9 a new type of telecommunications carrier will be making its debut in the South African market. His name is Winston. He’s a pigeon.
Winston will be flying from Howick to Durban in a test to see if he can oust Telkom as the telecommunications supplier to The Unlimited Group. A 4Gb memory card will be strapped to his leg and all indications are that this will be a much faster means of transferring data than the current ADSL line the company is using.
The Unlimited Group is a financial services provider with 11 satellite call centres around the province and every day they need to upload hundreds of mega bytes of voice logs to their central database for QA and legal purposes. Due to the poor quality and inconsistency of the lines, the transfer times can be frustratingly long. A recent upload took more than two days to transfer 4Gb. Winston should be able to accomplish the same feat in about 45 minutes.
Winston’s mother, a Mrs Churchill, has said she “always knew her son would accomplish something eggceptional”. If he manages to get the South African broadband revolution “off the ground” it will indeed be something miraculous. Unfortunately not the type of miraculous we’re all hoping for.
All the attention Winston is getting, and no-one thinks to post his pedigree! Is he a Churchill Putterie? Is that where the joke about his mother comes from? Was Winston bred for the short- or middle-distances?
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