🚀 go-pugleaf

|In article <davecb.725911218@yorku.ca>,
| posted to comp.mail.headers,comp.mail.misc,
| davecb@nexus.yorku.ca (David Collier-Brown) wrote:
|>
|>  This assumes store-and forward, something which is getting
|>less and less poplular at time passes, and was never part of
|>the RFC world anyway. 

bruce@blilly.UUCP (Bruce Lilly) writes:
|As network topologies and sizes change, it is sometimes enlightening to review
|one's assumptions. To take another mail-related example, it used to be the
|case that a moderate number of "hops" (say two dozen) could be considered to
|be an indication of a mail loop.  [...]

Ah, good, some actual facts to discuss.

Yes, I've noticed that I've had to increase the threshold for
loop-detection because of sites as far away as New Zealand and Georgia
(in the former USR, not the U.S.), and tht does indicate more
store-and-forward connections on the periphery of the Internet, thus
supporting your position.

At the same time, I've been noticing a commensurate fall in the number
of hops to very distant sites (eg, Finland, Australia).

I interpret this as a ``two wave'' effect, with connectivity being
achieved initially via UUCP and other private-net store-and-forward
protocols, then upgrading to IP, giving ``direct'' connectivity.  I
see exactly that in the local Toronto area, with the proposal and
implementation of an IP Metropolitan Area Network...

I speculate that this is a universal phenomenon, and expect to be able
to turn down my hop-counter once the major discontinuous nets ether
join the Internet or otherwise reduce their tendancy to do
store-and-forward transport.  From comments by the victims of some of
the European networks, the Internet is gaining rapidly on the PTTs.
Certainly Canada's experience has been that x.400 and ISO
(conection-oriented) networking is less deliverable to real customers
than IP.

--dave (thanks for the light amoungst the heat) c-b
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@CCS.YorkU.CA | lethe!dave
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | York Postmaster and
CANADA. 416-223-8968  | occasional sendfail(8) consultant.