Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: wnp@dcs.uucp (Wolf N. Paul) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Networks Considered Harmful - For Electronic Mail Message-ID: Date: 19 Aug 89 13:47:20 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Lines: 178 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 313, message 1 of 4 In TELECOM Digest 9/306, JMC@sail.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) writes: > However, unless email is freed from dependence on the networks, I predict it > will be supplanted by telefax for most uses in spite of its many advantages > over telefax. > ... > The reason why telefax will supplant email unless email is separated > from special networks is that telefax works by using the existing telephone > network directly. > ... No complicated network addresses and no politics to determine who is > eligible to be on what network. Telefax is already much more widely used than > email, and a Japanese industry estimate is that 5 percent of homes will have > telefax by 1995 and 50 percent by 2010. This is with a $200 target price. Frankly, I believe that E-Mail and Fax will co-exist for quite a while, because both methods of communications have unique advantages which are appropriate in different circumstances. > Another mistake was UUCP. ... > > 1. It assumes that both parties are using the UNIX operating system > rather than using a general mail protocol. This is only moderately serious, > because some other systems have been able to pretend to be UNIX sufficiently > well to implement the protocols. You don't need to pretend to be UNIX. There are uucp-compatible programs available for MS-DOS, VMS, AOS, MacIntosh, etc. > 2. It requires that the message forwarding computer have login > privileges on the receiver. This has resulted in a system of relaying > messages that involves gateways, polling and complicated addresses. This > results in politics in getting connected to the gateways and causes addresses > often to fail. Relaying messages via multiple hops and gateways is based on economics, not necessarily on questions of login access. There is such a thing as anonymous UUCP, which does not require machines to have any specially privileged access. But most sites do not wish to make long distance calls, therefore the message-passing system. > 3. Today forwarding is often a service provided free and therefore of > limited expandibility. But there are situations like UUNET here in North America, and a practically commercial UUCP network operating in Europe, both of which offer an avenue of expansion. > ... > The solution is to go to a system that resembles fax in that the ``net > addresses'' are just telephone numbers. The simple form of the command is just > > MAIL @$, > > after which the user engages in the usual dialog with the mail system. No doubt there would be some uses for a system such as you describe, but it has major drawbacks over E-Mail as currently implemented in a variety of systems. > Eventually, there will be optical fiber to every home or office > supplied by the telephone companies. The same transmission facilities will > serve telephone, picturephone, fax, electronic mail, telnet, file transfer, > computer utilities, access to the Library of Congress, the "National Jukebox" > and maybe even a national video jukebox. In the meantime, different services > require different communication rates and can afford different costs to get > them. However, current telephone rates transmit substantial messages coast- > to-coast for less than the price of a stamp. Indeed the success of telefax, > not to speak of Federal Express, shows that people are willing to pay even > higher costs. This is the issue around which things revolve. At this point, using Internet, UUCP, or commercial E-mail simply is still cheaper than sending a message via FAX or via a system such as you propose. It is also cheaper than voice telephone, and provides a hard copy of the message to both parties. For those who use computers in the normal course of their work, it integrates flawlessly with their work environment. A system such as you propose, for security purposes (since you advocate password-free access) would almost have to use dedicated hardware, and would thus integrate less flawlessly, in addition to incurring long distance costs and giving up the advantages of batching transmissions. As for the FAX-vs-EMAIL issue: In my experience people who have access to electronic mail use FAX for a number of issues which are hard to resolve: 1. FAX provides a legally acceptable facsimile of a document in a way that E-Mail cannot. I can edit an e-mail message prior to printing it out, and claim that it arrived that way. FAX is harder to falsify. This may well be the main reason for the success of FAX, in conjunction with the almost instantaneous delivery of the copy. 2. FAX requires no retyping of the handwritten notes and other communications still very common in our office requirements. If I have a manually annotated document, I can fax it and thus transmit both the original document and the handwritten notes at the same time. 3. Because FAX can transmit an image of a hardcopy communication generated in any number of ways, it is easier to use for those who still are somewhat computer-phobic. Yes, those folks are still around, sometimes in the highest echelons of management, and they will still be with us for a while. If all you have is E-mail, you need someone to re-type messages generated by those who prefer other methods of producing hard copy. Another issue related to pricing is the postal monopoly situation in many countries outside the US. The only reason the postal services tolerate FAX is because it is substantially more expensive than a first class letter. The only reason they tolerate E-Mail is because they control the PSS networks. For political reasons, they will not allow a CHEAP direct e-mail service, for fear that it will compete with the Postal Service. > Fortunately, there is free enterprise. Therefore, the most likely way of > getting direct electronic mail is for some company to offer a piece of hard- > ware as an electronic mail terminal including the facilities for connecting > to the current variety of local area networks (LANs). The most likely way for > this to be accomplished is for the makers of fax machines to offer ASCII > service as well. This will obviate the growing practice of some users of fax > of printing out their messages in an OCR font, transmitting them by fax, > whereupon the receiver scans them with an OCR scanner to get them back into > computer form. That would be a useful thing, but your next sentence does not follow: > This is probably how the world will have to get rid of the > substantially useless and actually harmful mail network industry. Look at FAX and the type of service you propose as the Federal Express of electronic communications. Then look at commercial networks as the First Class Mail service -- short delivery times for a lot less money. And finally the various "free" or volunteer networks are similar to Fourth Class Mail. They can co-exist quite happily. The only way that current e-mail schemes are "harmful" to what you propose is in the way that the existence of the US Postal Service is harmful to FedEx, UPS, etc. -- but that is life! > More generally, suppose the same need can be met either by buying a > product or subscribing to a service. If the costs are at all close, the > people who sell the product win out over those selling the service. Why this > is so I leave to psychologists, and experts in marketing, but I suppose it > has to do with the fact that selling services requires continual selling to > keep the customers, and this keeps the prices high. That is not necessarily true. Despite the fact that Office Copiers have proliferated over the past couple of decades, Copy Shops offering the same service have also proliferated. For some people it makes sense to purchase the product and provide their own service. For others it makes more sense to purchase the service when they need it and not make the capital investment in the product. Don't try to press everyone into the same mold. > I hope my pessimism about institutions is unwarranted, but I remember > a quotation from John von Neumann to some effect like expecting institutions > to behave rationally is like expecting heat to flow from a cold place to a > hot place. That is because institutions are made up of people. > I must confess that I don't understand the relation between this > proposal and the various electronic communication standards that have been > adopted like X25 and X400. I only note that the enormous effort put into > these standards has not resulted in direct telephone electronic mail or > anything else as widely usable as telefax. These are related to interconnecting the different commercial networks, and that is definitely coming. Well, these are my comments. It seems to me that you are unnecessarily setting this up as an either-or situation, which it is not. All of these communications have their place: FAX, direct e-mail, and networked e-mail. Wolf Paul -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: attctc!dcs!wnp Western Union ESL: 62864642 DOMAIN: dcs!wnp@texbell.swbt.com TLX: 910-380-8748 WNP UD