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From: Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Signal Routes?
Message-ID: <12486@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 23 Sep 90 21:49:18 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 671, Message 2 of 12


William carries a thread <in Digest V10, Iss 648>:

>On <Sep 12 17:31> Timothy C Wolfson (tcwst@unix.cis.pitt.edu )
>writes:

>TC> 1.) I use my telephone to make an intrastate call. Is there a
>TC> possibility that the signals, whether via wire or microwave,
>TC> etc., will be routed over the state line?

WD> Sure. Happens all the time.

In fact, the principle is worldwide.  You may have noticed recent
posts on here that a reader in South Africa found calls to Kuwait were
going via England.  It's a very common principle, much like mail or
freight, "Not your concern how we get it there, so long as we deliver
it undamaged." <Damage is a different story, though! What do you
expect?  Do you know WHAT we have to do to get it there for you?">

>TC> 2.) Same idea, but instead of a telephone, I send an email
>TC> message to another computer on a network.

WD> Even more likely. If the email message depends on batched
WD> transmissions over the PSTN, it often makes sense to send them to an
WD> out-of-state hub and back in to take advantage of lower interstate
WD> rates.

Adding to Bill's remarks, it is even more likely yet on an
international basis.  Many underdeveloped nations do not even
physically have a hub, so everything for the nation is done in a
partition of a larger nation's machine.  This principle extends at
least as far back as Telex, in which some notable cases were: Iran
Telex subscribers actually getting their Telex "dial tone" from New
York, about 9300 miles away; lesser cases for Trinidad getting theirs
from Montreal and Martinique getting theirs from Paris.

Makes for interesting routing table work in international public
networks.