Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!samsung!uunet!philmtl!atha!aupair.cs.athabascau.ca!lyndon From: lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: UUCP path cost reduction Message-ID: <11@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> Date: 31 Jul 90 15:57:26 GMT References: Organization: Athabasca University Lines: 41 fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) writes: >Some of the things I >definitely want to cut are: >reduce: > ...!site1!...!dom.ain!... >to: > ...!site1!dom.ain!... >if site1 is known to be on the Internet and at least 2 hops can be removed, NO! If you are going to use the UUCP transport, please use the published UUCP transport routing tables (aka comp.mail.maps). If you use the above method when sending mail to *.athabascau.ca, your message will cost MORE to send, and will take LONGER to get here? Why? Let me explain ... [ Note: this only applies to UUCP only sites. If you're on the Internet as well a UUCP site, feel free to give priority to whatever transport you like. ] We are one of the *many* registered domains that are not connected to the Internet. Our MX record points at wrl.dec.com (aka decwrl). If you knew about Canadian long distance phone rates, you would know why we only poll them once per day, in the wee hours of the morning. Even then, it costs us around $.45/minute to connect. On the other hand, an excellent UUCP path to us can be had via the ...!ubc-cs!alberta!atha path. A number of sites advertise connections to ubc-cs. Most of these actually travel over the Internet. ubc-cs->alberta is an Internet link, and alberta->atha goes over X.25. The latter path is significantly cheaper for all the sites, and means the difference between me getting your message the day you sent it (usually within a couple of hours), or getting it the next day via our MX forwarder. If you use the map information as it's published, mail will flow smoothly and quickly. If you start second guessing the information the system administrators publish, you'll only cause problems. -- Lyndon Nerenberg VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University {alberta,cbmvax,mips}!atha!lyndon || lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca Practice Safe Government Use Kingdoms