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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!Bakin@HI-MULTICS.ARPA
From: Bakin@HI-MULTICS.ARPA (Jerry Bakin)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Overloading the UUCP network. (Keep this message away from flammables.)
Message-ID: <290@hou3c.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Feb-84 16:38:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hou3c.290
Posted: Fri Feb 17 16:38:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Feb-84 04:53:17 EST
Sender: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist)
Lines: 51

Am I alone, or have other people experienced:

 o  Mail lost in UUCP.
 o  Mail successfully transmitted but received too late to be of use.
    (One week or more delay interval between sending and receiving)
 o  A from path which is useless (no pun intended) as a reply path, and
    no reply path explicitly given.
 o  No idea of a path from host A to host 2, much less knowledge of an
    optimal route between the two.
 o  A previously known host in a path between two hosts going down for an
    unknown amount of time forcing a completely new path to be worked out.
 o  A previously known gateway between two networks going down for an
    unknown amount of time forcing completely new paths to be figured out.
 o  The name of a host in a path changing.

It is my understanding UUCP was intended to be used on the very low
scale.  Now, what is already an overloaded net is threatened to be
completely inundated by the release (neither good nor bad) of a version
of UUCP for the PC.  Am I to believe that industry, faced with KNOWLEDGE
of the above problems, and needing a mail which is reliable, is
screaming for Lauren to release his PC UUCP?   
 
Yes, I do believe they are screaming, but for two reasons: I) They have
no knowledge of the problems, II) Cheap is CHEAP.

However, with the possible trebling of the load on the UUCP net due to
commercial use, can we expect intolerable problems?  Perhaps such sites
as Berkeley, a taxpayer funded gateway, will stop being a gateway,
because there is only so much subsizing of a commercial net their
administration will allow (not to mention the possible trebling costs)?
Or, other gateway sites which are already commercial, but support CS
use, will stop being allowed to be used as gates due to increased costs
and loads on their systems.

Lauren, we all want to become rich and help mankind, let me make a
suggestion that you design a net which runs on phone lines at 1200 baud,
is domain like in its addresses, dynamically rerouting based upon cost,
and speed, delivers mail, registered mail, and secure mail, (all with
acknowledgement of receipt available.)  Start it for the PC, (call it
Personnel Computer Protocal --  PCP), design it so anyone can adopt it,
and market this.  Businesses will pay the added phone costs in much the
same way that they pay for business calls now, so the cost of calling
cross country via cross town will not be as important as getting the
mail there this hour versus this month. In the mean time, UUCP will not
become anymore bogged down than it is, nor will I or any of us have to
subsidize Charlie Chaplan's Hat Business anymore than we currently do.
And if you really want to become rich, you'll lease own cross country
lines, (They're only 3K a month) and run your net yourself at higher
speeds and charging people by the message.

Jerry.