🚀 go-pugleaf

	>I sent a message to a .com site in the U.S. today. I couldn't believe my
	>eyes when I had a reply back in 1/2 hour! So I completely agree with Mr.
	>Engsig -- a BIG thank you to the EUnet maintainers.
I think it's necessary to set the picture straight: yes, it can
happen that you get a reply on your mail in a few hours or (much)
less. A trivial reason is that you 'hit' the right time, taking
the time difference between your country and the (addressed) part
of the USA into account.
A less trivial reason is that you are on the "right" part of EUnet,
so to speak: unfortunately not all of EUnet has the same structure
anymore that is used to have: all backbones interconnected via the
public X.25 networks, with mcvax taking care of the US traffic.
Instead, some EUnet countries have leased lines to each other and
to mcvax; and some can talk to the US directly. Especially in those
countries real fast replies are possible; in the other countries it
will take somewhat longer. I fully agree that this is an unfortunate
situation, but EUnet is working hard on turning itself into a fully
leased line and TCP/IP (especially for the international connections)
based network, partly by itself, partly in cooperation with other
networks, like EARN, HEPNET and NORDUnet. It's especially through
this sort of cooperation that we now have a full link backup in case
our US link goes down: backup switching is a matter of a minute or
so, less than it will take e.g. nntp to timeout... This backup will
be extended too in the (near) future.

In short: we're constantly working on improving the infrastructure
and service of *all* of EUnet.

-- 
Opinions expressed above reflect those of my employer, except when they don't.

	Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam	(piet@cwi.nl)