> That may be true of BITEARN NODES but you still have the Mailer tables and
> they don't correlate with BITEARN NODES.  I was speaking more of them than
> the latter, as most US sites get their route tables from UCLA (which is
> yet another file cruncher, but another story).  I have no opposition to the
> NETSERV tools, its only that the US only has *one* of them and its at the
> same place we get our Mailer tables from anyway.
 
My node is in the US and I use BITEARN NODES.  It is the combination
of BITONLY NAMES, EARN NAMES, and NETNORTH NAMES.  Thus using the
NETSERV update mechanism there is no need to get those files every
month -- only the NODUPD file, which is about 10% of the size.
 
Now we are not a VM site, so we don't use the Crosswell mailer.
However, we do have a mailer that requires the same information as
the Crosswell mailer.  We get it from BITEARN NODES, MAILER NAMES,
and DOMAIN NAMES.  The latter two are small and are available on AFD
from NETSERV.  For Crosswell mailer sites, BITNIC has provided
XMAILER NAMES, which is a subset of BITONLY NAMES, EARN NAMES, and
NETNORTH NAMES and therefore of BITEARN NODES.  Thus, if you already
have BITEARN NODES, you do not need XMAILER NAMES.  The only reason
it was created was to eliminate the need for people who just wanted
to create their Crosswell mailer tables to get the 3 large NAMES
files.  The NETSERV update mechanism for BITEARN NODES does a better
job of that.
 
By the way, BITEARN NODES is large only in terms of transmission
over the network.  The disk space required is only about 25 3380
tracks.
 
I do still get my routing tables from Chris Thomas.  The reason is
that the GENROUTS program for BITEARN NODES will not generate a JES2
table with JES2 node numbers starting at a number greater than 1 (to
allow space for local nodes).  If it did that, I would use GENROUTS
and avoid the transmission of my routing tables too.
 
I do agree that it would be a good idea to have more NETSERVs in the
US.  I would volunteer, but we are not a VM site.  However, even
with only one NETSERV in the US, the update mechanism can still
reduce the network load.  Why reinvent the wheel?
 
Roger