Have you heard about the pigeon that once flew faster than broadband? Well, here at Plusnet we’ve decided to take up the gauntlet and prove it all wrong with the Plusnet Fibre Pigeon Race and we’ve got former Emmerdale beauty, Roxanne Pallett to help us...and if that’s not enough, we’re jumping in to The Tardis too! Yes, you read that correctly - a pigeon race! From tomorrow, you’ll be able to get Plusnet Fibre if you live in an enabled area from as little as £16.49 a month. The new service utilises fibre optic technology to deliver up to 40Mb/s download speeds. From our recent customer trials we have seen an overwhelming change in broadband users’ speed capabilities: 74 per cent of customers who previously experienced speeds of 2-12Mbps say they now experience speeds of 30Mbps or more, so we want to test it further! On the same day of launch, we’ve invited a number of technology-savvy racers to try and beat us including: @gadgits, @SteveMay_UK , @willfindlater, @kevin__lynch, @dangrabham, @LovesickHank, @steve_dinneen, @mattwarman, @Chrishaslam. All 20 competitors will be backing a racing pigeon and trying to beat the fast and fierce force of Plusnet Fibre. We aim to download as many episodes of Dr Who as we can in the time it takes our feathered friends to make it from Potter’s Field in London back to Bloomhill Lofts, Doncaster, in our home county of Yorkshire. Pigeons and a tardis, there’s no better way to travel! Roxanne will be letting the pigeons off at 8am. We will be waiting for the safe return home, ready to crown the winning pigeon and donate £300 to a charity of the winning racer’s choice. At the same time, we’ll have Plusnet’s download demon, Mr Parr @plusnet downloading as many episodes of Dr Who as he can in the time it takes the first pigeon to touch down at base. Keep up-to-date with the progress of the pigeons by following Plusnet on Twitter @plusnet and #plusnetfibrepigeons. What do you mean the pigeon that once flew faster than broadband? Previously, a Durban-based IT company undertook speed trials to expose “patchy” broadband speed using a racing pigeon; a reference to the carrier pigeons used to carry messages since Roman times. The pigeon has been sent on a 100km journey with a 4GB USB stick containing data attached to its leg. At the same time as the pigeon set-off, a copy of the same data begins download on a computer. The result of these experiments can be seen below. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8248056.stm Here @plusnet we’re going to disprove this theory and up the stakes:
- We don’t want to impede the pigeon’s performance so we’re letting them take flight fresh for the 2011 pigeon-racing season and there will be no USB stick strapped to their leg
- We’ll have 20 pigeons, not just one
- We’re not sticking to 4GB, we’re going as far as we can
Feathered Facts: Did you know? Male pigeons are separated from their female partners for a whole five days before they are liberated to race home? On the sixth day they are allowed a quick ‘hello’ before they are transported away from home to be liberated, as it makes them fly home faster. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder when it comes to pigeons!
What is Plusnet Fibre Optic Broadband? Fibre is the next generation of broadband. It will be brought to businesses and homes across the country through fibre optic cable which offers much faster speeds and bandwidth than the current copper wire provision, ultimately making people’s internet use much more proficient.
