There is a professor at the college that needs to send a lot of data to a collea

Question

There is a professor at the college that needs to send a lot of data to a colleague at MIT. Would it be quicker for this professor send the data via a van, which will drive to MIT, then drive back to the college to pick up more data, and so on, or via an optical fiber which can transmit at a rate of 24 Tbps (you can assume that all the transmission delays are included in that data rate)?

If the van is used, the data will be stored in USB Flash Drives which can hold 128 GB each, and are physically measured to be 2 cm x 0.5 cm x 1 cm. These can be shipped in a van which has a storage space of 6 m x 4 m x 5 m. The van will travel an average of 60 Mph (this includes all the needed stops along the way, as well as getting the data on and off the USB sticks and moving them from the van to the computers). The distance from the college to MIT is about 3,145 miles for a one-way trip. Find this transmission rate, and state which method the professor should use.

Explanation / Answer

The number of USBs that can be sent in the van = (600*400*500)/(2*0.5*1)
= 120000000

Data sent in the van = 120000000 * 128 * 8 GBits
Time taken by van = 3145/60 = 52.41 hr = 188700 seconds
Rate of transfer by van = (120000000 * 128 * 8)/188700 = 6,51,192 Gbits/sec
        651192/1024 = 635.9 Tbps

The rate with van is higher than the optical fibre link as the link is only 27 Tbps. So the professor should choose the van.
    

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