Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!emv From: emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: uunet vs uunet.uu.net (was Re: how many "pluto"'s ) Message-ID: <736@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> Date: 5 Oct 88 18:18:06 GMT References: <731@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> <248@acheron.UUCP> <2521@epimass.EPI.COM> <734@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> <4788@b-tech.UUCP> Sender: usenet@mailrus.cc.umich.edu Reply-To: emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor Lines: 29 In article <4788@b-tech.UUCP> zeeff@b-tech.UUCP (Jon Zeeff) writes: >In article <734@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: >>uunet and can reach it over the internet, they may be very different. >>i.e. from umix, mail to uunet!host!user will go via dial-up, >>but mail to uunet.uu.net!host!user will go over tcp/smtp. >This is unfortunate. We have the naming scheme determining the >transport mechanism when it should be using the most efficient one. >The pathalias data can be used to get uunet.uu.net from uunet. no, it's not. When the internet melts down, we can still get to uunet - and for three days last week that was the case. Who is to say what is "most efficient" ? I've had a number of questions about this one, asking why we spend real money to connect to uunet when we could send things for "free" over the internet, which I've answered at least once by mail. The short answer is our dial-up connection to uunet is relatively cheap, extremely reliable, and introduces delays of up to 4 hours, while the internet connection to uunet is "free", moderately reliable, and has delays of anywhere from 45 seconds at best to 3 days bounce at worst. Some time in the next 6 months to 2 years the internet/NSFnet will probably become completely unusable for a relatively long period of time. We'll still be able to get through to uunet. Besides, Jon, if you don't like it, just address your mail differently..... --Ed