REF: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/aujogu/1tb_microsd_cards_are_now_a_thing/eh8y2ii/

There's a standard called IPoAC (IP over Avian Carriers) which essentially describes how to transmit packets via a homing pigeon network.

It's a joke, but let's have a look how a bulk transfer in IPoAC compares to a real connection.

IPoAC has very high latency and higher than usual packet loss* but you can compensate by sending multiple terabytes per packet and identical packets in parallel.

*) The 55% percent packet loss observed were operator error and not actual packets being lost.

Limitations and assumptions

• Ignoring the time it takes to write/read SD cards
• Instantaneous pigeon swap
• Each pigeon operates at peak performance from start to end
• No packet drop (actually literally in this case)
• The 1GBit/s connection we compare this against is perfect (no delay, no packet drop, full speed)

Stats

Micro SD Card

• Biggest Micro SD Card: 1 TiB [link]
• Micro SD Card Weight: 0.5 gram [link]

Note: The weight is from a 32 GiB card. I doubt they've gotten heavier.

Pigeon

• Homing Pigeon Average Speed: 96 km/h*
• Homing Pigeon Carry Weight: up to 75 grams

[link]

*) The article lists competitive racing bird speed at 160 Km/h. If that's true, you would get almost double the distance.

Calculations

We use SI units with factors of 1000 for bandwidth and binary units with factor 1024 for the micro SD card size because it's common.

• A pigeon can carry 75/0.5=150 Micro SD cards
• 150 Micro SD Cards contain 150 TiB storage space
• 150 TiB = 1'099'511'627'776 bytes
• Sending 150 TiB over a 1 gbit/s connection takes 15 days 6 hours 30 minutes 14 seconds.
• (Theoretical) Pigeon travel distance in 15.5 days is 35550 kilometers.

Calculations assume that there is no delay when packet TTL expires and it needs to be put onto a new packet (pigeon swap).

For perspective the circumference of Earth at the equator is around 40'075 km

Result

Because the distance is more than half of Earths circumference,
sending 150 TB of bulk data between any two points is now faster than a gigabit connection.

If you use the competitive 160 Km/h speed, you can go around the globe once before the gigabit completes.

Consideration

We now have 10 GBits/s connections available for end users,
considering this connection, you still have a 3500 km radius where a homing pigeon network is faster.

Conclusion

Miniaturization is faster than home user internet speed increases.

1TB SD Cards weren't announced too long ago and yielded around 6500 km (width of Africa).
The MicroSD card weight gave use a huge increment.

I've got way too much time and not enough pigeons.