Question

Suppose you need to deliver 40 terabytes of data to your co-workers in Atlanta (200 km). You have an available 100 Mbps dedicated link for data transfer. Alternatively, your friend raises homing pigeons and would be willing to let you borrow one. You have a single 1 TB SD card you can strap to the pigeon. Assume pigeons can fly 1000 km per day and that it takes no time to copy to/from the SD card.

Answer 1

Answer: All data will be sent in 89.39 hours

Explanation:

Data transfer rate: 100 Mbps=100
`(Mb)/(s)` ×
`(1Tb)/(1024^(2) Mb)`×
`(3600s)/(h)`=0.3433
`(Tb)/(h)`

The pigeon can fly 1000 km/day and it needs to fly 400 km (round trip).

Pigeon rate:
`(1000km)/(24h)`=41.67
`(km)/(h)`

Time of round trip: 400 km÷
`(1000km)/(24h)`=9.6 h

So the pigeon can send 1 Tb every 9.6 hours.

If we sum the rates we can get the time for sending all the data:

40 Tb= (0.3433 Tb/h + 1 Tb/9.6h)×t

T= 89.39 hours