The need for faster rural broadband in the UK has been highlighted in a unique contest set up by campaigners.

Organiser Tref Davies yesterday (September 16th 2010) pitted a Yorkshire farm's home broadband connection against carrier pigeons to discover which method is the fastest way to transfer a five-minute video file to Wrangle, 75 miles away.

Mr Davies predicted that the pigeons' expected journey time of around two hours would prove to be a significantly faster way to transport the 300MB file than the broadband line, reports BBC News.

His forecast proved accurate, with Rory the pigeon completing the task in around 80 minutes, significantly faster than the 100-200Kb/s broadband connection.

"This is the UK. It should be well-connected but around a third of homes still can't get broadband," said Mr Davies, who is the co-founder of internet service provider Timico.

Despite his comments, an Ofcom report published in July found the country's average broadband speed is 5.2Mb/s, up from 4.1Mb/s in 2009.

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