These links are paid for by each institution to a local carrier (for
example, Bell Atlantic owns PrepNet, the main provider in
Pennsylvania). Also available are SLIP connections, which carry
Internet traffic (packets) over high-speed modems.
UUCP links are made with modems (for the most part), that run from 1200 baud all the way up to as high as 38.4Kbps. As was mentioned in The Networks, the connections are of the store-and-forward variety. Also in use are Internet-based UUCP links (as if things weren't already confusing enough!). The systems do their UUCP traffic over TCP/IP connections, which give the UUCP-based network some blindingly fast "hops," resulting in better connectivity for the network as a whole. UUCP connections first became popular in the 1970's, and have remained in wide-spread use ever since. Only with UUCP can Joe Smith correspond with someone across the country or around the world, for the price of a local telephone call.
BITNET links mostly take the form of 9600bps modems connected from site to site. Often places have three or more links going; the majority, however, look to "upstream" sites for their sole link to the network.
"The Glory and the Nothing of a Name"
Byron, {Churchill's Grave}
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Electronic Mail
The desire to communicate is the essence of networking. People have always wanted to correspond with each other in the fastest way possible, short of normal conversation. Electronic mail (or email) is the most prevalent application of this in computer networking. It allows people to write back and forth without having to spend much time worrying about how the message actually gets delivered. As technology grows closer and closer to being a common part of daily life, the need to understand the many ways it can be utilized and how it works, at least to some level, is vital. part of daily life (as has been evidenced by the ISDN effort, the need to understand the many ways it can be utilized and how it works, at least to some level, is vital.
Email Addresses
Electronic mail is hinged around the concept of an address; the section on Networking Basics made some reference to it while introducing domains. Your email address provides all of the information required to get a message to you from anywhere in the world. An address doesn't necessarily have to go to a human being. It could be an archive server, {See Archive Servers, for a description.} a list of people, or even someone's pocket pager. These cases are the exception to the norm—-mail to most addresses is read by human beings.
%@!.: Symbolic Cacophony
Email addresses usually appear in one of two forms—-using the Internet format which contains @, an "at"-sign, or using the UUCP format which contains !, an exclamation point, also called a "bang." The latter of the two, UUCP "bang" paths, is more restrictive, yet more clearly dictates how the mail will travel.