On Wed, 02 Aug 1995 18:35:57 +0200, you said:
> It may just be me but my first impressions are that AOL-users have a bigger
> tendency to just disappear than any other netropolitan. Consequently most
> delivery problems occur with @aol.com addresses.
 
Let's say, for the sake of discussion, that all network users have a base
2% chance of going away any given month (number picked out of a hat merely
because this results in a cumulative almost 100% chance of dissapearance
after 4 years, which is just about true for my environment (a university ;))
 
The Virginia Tech/Blacksburg Electronic Village area has some 60,000 total
users (give or take a few thousand).  This means that in any given month,
we can expect 60,000 * 0.02 or 1,200 addresses dying a month.
 
Let's say AOL has 6,000,000 subscribers.  They're going to have 120,000
go belly up a month.
 
Simple matter of scale - you see more AOL addresses fail because literally
20% of all Internet users are at an AOL.COM addres...
 
                                Valdis Kletnieks
                                Computer Systems Engineer
                                Virginia Tech