The next time you complain about slow Internet, spare a thought for the people of South Africa who have to contend with Telkom. The situation is so bad that one information technology company decided to make a point.

Unlimited IT pitted an 11-month-old pigeon against the country’s leading ISP in a race to transfer data from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. The distance was approximately 50 miles; the results, surprising.

The pigeon transfer took a total of two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds (including the flight time of one hour and eight minutes, and the time it took to transfer data to and from the card). At the time that the pigeon transfer had finished, only 4% of the Telkom download was completed.

[We Interrupt]