As I installed our companies original Internet connection and still
assist in keeping it up, I thought I would toss in some information
(food for thought) regarding network capabilities:
Our company original went on-line with a "dial on demand ppp" at 14.4
(several years ago). During that time we had newsgroups, web access
(the web came along later) and email all trying to go through the 14.4
modem. It pretty much stayed on-line most of the day to get the email
through. We have upgraded to a partial T1 (and killed newsgroups),
but even with the higher performance our line hits it's max. throughput
4 to 5 hours a day (we are going to upgrade again shortly). I know of
companies today that still have their entire company connected through
14.4 modems (maybe 28.8, but it still painful for them). It is possible
that people who's companies are tied in through the modem approach may
not know that their company uses "slow technology", because it is
transparent to the users.
Even with a fast pipe to the Internet there can be problems. It does
not take a lot of attached email files coming in, to clog up the email
system. Not long ago we had a case where it was taking our email server
over 8 hours to process the incoming and outgoing email. (One user who
was subscribed to a number of email lists was responsible for 90% of the
traffic - he is no longer with us.) Some of the emails contained time
critical data. We had to buy a bigger and faster machine for the email
gateway. No doubt it will become two machines someday. All of which
costs $$$$ (yes it is the cost of doing business now days). Not long ago
I ran across a company that has a large pipe to the Internet, but ran in
to through put problems. It seems a number of people started to use
Pointcast and other similar services and they clog up their pipe. They
installed a proxy server to fix the problem.
History: Some of the reasons the limits were put on years ago was that
there were countries that only had 300 baud connections. I would have
to imagine that they have upgraded since then, but there could still be
some old slow links around. If there still are such countries still
around, it could be that they do not care about safety, because of the
lack of technology.
Another issue that needs addressed is that the UNIX email reader scrolls
the text part of the message off of the screen, when there is an attached
file, so I can not even see if it is anything I even care about. I save it
to a file then look at it with an editor. If the attachment is in the mime
format, I put it through a converter on my PC. If it is uuencoded I
convert it on UNIX. I have two email accounts one is UNIX (this is where
email lists go to) and a CC:Mail account on a PC.
It might make more sense to allow easy posting of the graphic on an ftp area
on the IEEE server with a http reference in the email. It would minimize
traffic, and people would still be able to access it easily. Anyone with
a websmart email reader can easily click on the reference in the email
and instantly get the file. Those who do not have such an email system
can probably cut and paste it into the web browser (which is what I do at
work).
The catch is more services are starting to take up more of the available
bandwidth and current services are consuming even more. Even though
any one item that consumes more bandwidth is not that big of a deal, sooner
or later there could be the feather that breaks it........ Having said
all of that I am actual neutral on attached graphics. I see both the
advantages and the disadvantages.
Jim
Jim Bacher, Senior Engineer _\\|//_ Monarch Marking Systems, Inc.
email:j...@mmsday.com (' O-O ') voice:1-937-865-2020
PO Box 608--------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo------------fax:1-937-865-2048
Dayton, Ohio 45401-0608---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
170 Monarch Ln., Miamisburg, Ohio 45342--------------j.bac...@ieee.org
