Newsgroups: tor.news
Path: utzoo!lsuc!tmsoft!mason
From: mason@tmsoft.uucp (Dave Mason)
Subject: Takin' my mail down to Virginee...
Message-ID: <1989May14.191801.18773@tmsoft.uucp>
Followup-To: tor.news
Reply-To: mason@tmsoft.UUCP (Dave Mason)
Organization: TM Software Associates, Toronto
References: <1989May14.165359.21028@telly.on.ca>
Distribution: tor
Date: Sun, 14 May 89 19:18:01 GMT

In article <1989May14.165359.21028@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>Upon redoing my paths file recently, I noticed that pathalias now considers
>the fastest trip from here to uunet to be
>
>telly!utzoo!utgpu!utai!watmath!uunet
>
>rather than what it used to be, telly!attcan!uunet

I also noticed this yesterday, so I tried mail to:
	mason%tmsoft@uunet.uu.net
 and	mnetor!uunet!mason%tmsoft	(my previous best path)
to test the time it took via each path.

The one via mnetor worked fine (although it didn't go out of Toronto
until midnight (NOTE: I'm definitely NOT complaining) but it got
turned around immediately at uunet & was back here within 30 minutes).

The one via watmath translated into utcsri!utai!watmath!uunet!... but
it bounced off utgpu, yes gpu!  It seems that watmath's internet path
actually goes via utgpu (though why I don't know!) but it mangled the
bounce path to such an extent that gpu couldn't make sense of it and I
got some nice mail from Postmaster@gpu.  Needless to say, I re-ran
pathalias with -dwatmath!uunet.  Everything is now fine.

>This brought on a couple of curiosities:
>
>1) What's changed in local connectivity to bring this about? Does watmath
>   really talk to uunet every 1/2 hour?
See above.  Sort-of is my evaluation of this.

>2) I thought UofT also talks to uunet. If the waterloo connection is so
>   good, why bother?
My understanding is that UofT does not want to be the local mail hub
any more than they already are.  Note that the waterloo internet
connection PHYSICALLY (if not logically, see above) goes through UofT.
Moreover mail from Toronto will follow some UofT path to Waterloo,
then back to UofT to head on to uunet.  Not very efficient.  I thought
Rayan was going to control the costs so Waterloo would not look like
the path of choice from Toronto.  If anyone is going to advertise an
internet connection, it would make more sense for it to be UofT, but I
gather the politics of the situation prevent it.

>4) Can anyone confirm what I've heard as rumour, that Telebit
>   LD links for news feeds are actually cheaper than X.25?
Talk to ron@mnetor.

	../Dave