🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <585@otto.COM> glenn@otto.UUCP (Glenn Scott) writes:
<In article <4691@watcgl.waterloo.edu>, awpaeth@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Alan Wm Paeth) writes:
<
<>As I recall the current telephone number arrangement is truly by
<> "land-line" -- the NBS has arranged with Bell that the signals not be
<> routed via satellite, as the speed of light path delay becomes a
<> significant fraction of a second.  These guys are always "on guard for
<> purity", and seem to do a good job at that.
<>
<>   /Alan Paeth
<>   Computer Graphics Laboratory
<>   University of Waterloo
<
<  This doesn't make sense to me, so I'm not sure you're saying what I think
<you are.
<
<  If I originate the call, my local telephone provider doesn't necessarily
<know that I'm calling the NBS Time Service, and it would route my call via
<the most viable way.  That's not likely to be via "land-line" from Nevada
<to Colorado.

At the point where it has been determined that the call is going outside your
LATA they may have the computer set up too check for certain special numbers
that receive special routing. This is already done for 800 and 900 numbers,
so I'm sure they can do it for this one too!

<  In addition, the "speed of light delay" via satellite shouldn't be much
<different than the speed of light delay over a copper wire...

Huh?! The wire distance from here in Oregon to Colorado is, say 1500km.
That's 5e-3 seconds. double that for the round trip. A satelite link,
goes thru a comsat in geosynchronousd orbit at 37,000km. So we've got 
a total round trip length of 37,000*4= 148,000, call it 150,000 for
ease of calculation. That gives uas a lag of .5 sec! 

So landline is .01, and satelite is .5. Thats close to two orders of magnitude
difference! 50 times as much lag!


-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."