Most of the ARPA load comes from distribution lists and "digests". When such a file arrives at WISCVM from ARPA, the gateway generates one copy for each EARN/BITNET recipient. Those files are usually 1,500 to 4,500 lines, ie not small files AT ALL. The gateway does not use the MAILER network to distribute the digests. It does not use the LISTSERV DISTRIBUTE feature which could divide the load by more than 5 for european mailings. I've received a suggestion from some US people who asked me not to give out their names for political reasons that I try to encourage FRECP11-LISTSERV owners to create ARPA lists on their machine to redistribute ARPA mail. This is indeed a good idea, but it came from several people who are NOT willing to run a LISTSERV on their own machine to participate in the operation, be it because of their own decision or because of political reasons. Since those nodes are precisely those where such a redistri- bution would be needed the most, I am inclined to think that the best solution would be to have the gateways use the LISTSERV DISTRIBUTE system which would provide an even better efficiency than local lists. Only one single copy of the mail items would be sent from WISCVM to the nearest LISTSERV, which is unfortu- nately 4 nodes away (CLVM). What do you think about this? LSTSRV-L people, would you be willing to accept the network and CPU load that this would place on your machines for the sake of the network (wow! :-) )? Eric