Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!jww From: jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West) Newsgroups: net.mail Subject: Re: Mail addressing and routing Message-ID: <1040@sdcsvax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 11:40:49 EDT Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.1040 Posted: Thu Aug 15 11:40:49 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 22:38:49 EDT References: <644@adobe.UUCP> <5866@utzoo.UUCP> Organization: CACI, Inc - Federal, La Jolla Lines: 51 >In article <5866@utzoo.UUCP>, Henry Spencer writes > This sort of idea has come up before. The problem is that geography in > general, and state boundaries in particular, has little to do with good > routing. The classic case, which I *think* has now been cleared up, is > that for a long time there were two disjoint sets of machines in Colorado, > with no in-state links between them. Geography does show some correlation > with routing, mostly because long-distance charges are tied to geography, > but arbitrary groupings are hard to avoid if you want a solid basis for > routing decisions. Anyone of us who has thought about the problem and still likes geography is aware of this distinction. Many of my (gould9) best links are out-of-town, and for a while, all of them were. I have no direct links to anywhere in usa.ca.n, but plenty to att.nj and usa.fl. However, geographic domains have several advantages: 1) They are unambiguous, clear, and indisputable. If I know henry is in Toronto, then I know his domain is "ON.CAN" (or whatever). I don't have to guess what his organization is. When he joins the net (if he's a new user) he doesn't have to agonize over which domain to join and, in fact, to domain headquarters (domainhq@cbosgd.IL.USA) will automatically grep and grok "Ontario" and spit out ON.CAN 2) In terms of reliability, geographic is as good as any. Sure, there are some cases where geographic is bad--I now would send to any Calif. AT&T site via ihnp4. However, no scheme will be perfect and the choice is really arbitrary. 3) It keeps phone costs down. When the net explosion hits, a lot of needless phone calls out of state will eliminate the desireability of UUCP at many sites. Perhaps it will tend to encourage people to use more sensible routings rather than crossing the country three times. 4) It will encourage more local ("free") connections. People will tend to exchange connections with major sites in their area. I think this is a good thing. 5) DOMAINS != ROUTES As has been noted, domains are a logical address space, and only imply routings for the dumbest of sites. Almost any site can replace "rmail" with something that goes through a pathalias database. Those paths will be optimally routed for frequent correspondents. If an occasional message to an unknown site is confused by a misleading domain and takes a suboptimal route, so what? If it arrives, it's better than the present system. Joel West CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o Gould CSD) {decvax!sdcsvax,ihnp4!bonnie}!gould9!joel gould9!joel@NOSC.ARPA