[11524] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The whole CIX concept is flawed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vadim Antonov)
Tue Apr 5 16:36:32 1994
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 13:31:06 -0400
From: Vadim Antonov <avg@sprint.net>
To: sean@dsl.pitt.edu, stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
>I agree with you. I'm merely pointing out that FAX is e-mail for the
>masses and it progressed, quite nicely thank you, while the rest of the
>world quibbled about the superhighway and Internetworking. I agree with
>you, people will pick the most inexpensive solution that covers 90% of
>their needs, not the cadillac solution that covers 100%.
Sorry to disappoint you but the FAX-net simply won't work in your
average developing country with poor telephone system.
The problem with faxes is their stupid protocol with no retransmits
and error correction. If links are bad enough you'll be getting
unreadable faxes 90% of the time. Then, if you need to transmit
text you're getting two orders of magnitude more bits to transmit
as compared to pure ASCII.
Then, if the telephone system is overloaded you'll be spending
*hours* pressing redial button. There ain't no such thing as
multi-hop fax relays to avoid using particularly bad or overloaded
links. e-mail relays can use off-time to transmit data; you'll
get it next day but you'll get it. And modems never tire of dialing
the number over and over again.
A simple UUCP-based e-mail is proven to work under those conditions.
If properly built it guarantees reliable delivery and integrity of
data. It supports broadcasting (aka USENET). It can be expanded
practically indefinitely. In case of *real* bad lines you can buy
a Telebit which can get thru any link. The start-up costs are a bit
higher but if you do long-distance transfers you'll save enough money
to compensate in two months. And if you want reasonable cheap
international connectivity forget about faxes. The realisic price
for 1Kb of international e-mail is about $0.05; for a page of fax --
$2-3.
As for "complexity" of e-mail -- it's just plain not true. Launching
it up and producing plug-and-play e-mail kits is a complex task.
After that it's easy.
Well, i know of a country stretched on 11 time zones where e-mail is
the only reliable way of communication. If it works on this large scale
it should work for smaller countries as well.
--vadim
