On Mon, 16 Mar 1992 23:47:52 PST Malcolm Carlock <[log in to unmask]> said: >> I frequently have sub-minute response to/from addresses in North >> America, and the access time to Europe isn't much less. > >Er.. Compare this to sub-second response via the Internet to/from >addresses in Japan and Europe from the U.S. Sub-second response time for mail? You've got to be kidding. And who cares if it takes 37 seconds or 0.37 seconds for your mail to reach its recipient? He will need long minutes to read and answer anyway, not to mention the time zones. >At the risk of sounding flippant, I would strongly suggest you gain some >before making further serious recommendations in this area. At the risk of sounding flippant, I would strongly suggest that you read before flaming. He said he pinged a site. How do you ping if you don't have Internet access? >> And why should the networks be 'competing', both offer unique >> services, that each institution must balance prior to committing to >> one/other/both. > >If there's any real "competition" between the two networks, it's due to >the Internet offering the same sorts of services as, and many more than >BITNET, You don't seem to have much knowledge about BITNET and the services it offers. May I suggest that you heed your own advice and gain some experience before wasting everyone's time on a stupid, misinformed flame? The reason why BITNET still exists, now that it is (mostly) being run over TCP/IP and requires payment of an additional membership fee and purchase of additional NJE software, is that it offers services that the Internet doesn't provide. When I want to send a program to a colleague in the US, I type a simple command which takes half a second to execute and the file is on its way. It does not need to be uuencoded, split into pieces smaller than 50k, reconstructed at the other end, have mail headers removed, be uudecoded, and so on. I do not need his login password to FTP it into his machine and, if a line is down, I do not need to retry manually until I get it through, at 1kb/sec. Now may we please get back to constructive, list-maintenance related debates. If you want to flame BITNET, there is always usenet. Eric