On Wed, 22 Sep 1993 01:30:54 GMT "John F. Bacon" <[log in to unmask]> said:
 
>I think  you are  telling me  that USENET  distribution is  usually much
>faster than the BITNET mail reflection.
 
This  is not  true. Setting  aside  countries with  poor connectivity,  a
message posted to a LISTSERV mailing  list reaches most of its recipients
in 5 to 20 minutes (and many will get it in less than one minute). On the
other hand, this  is from the time  the message reaches the  list. If you
are posting  from usenet and  going through  a slow gateway,  the message
could well take hours to make it to the mailing list.
 
>Thanks for your reply. How do most people who have a choice read a list,
>via mail or news? I have been assuming most will choose news.
 
Many people also read digests and indexes.  At any rate, only 5% of lists
are available via news.
 
  Eric