[R-390] Email transit time/slow electrons?

[Barry Hauser]

Appears sometimes to be more of a case of sticky electrons.  Yesterday, my 
colleague in Chicago sent me (NY area) an email with a small attachment and 
marked it "priority".   Ordinarily, that has nothing to do anything -- just 
puts a mark alongside the header listing so it stands out.  Didn't come 
through.  Called him -- he re-sent it 10 mins. later without the priority 
marker and it came through immediately.  The original showed up about 3 
hours later.  At another point in the day he sent several test emails with 
and without the priority mark and with various subject lines.  All came 
through almost instantly.

I guess it's like the postal system when a piece of mail gets lost for a 
while.  But we had a paranoid moment there -- thinking the priority marker 
was like putting "Fragile!" on a package -- begging to be bashed by those of 
evil intent.

Actually, it's more analogous to a hanging slug rack in an R-390A. 
Sometimes it may work fine, sometimes it gets stuck for bit and then drops 
down.  That's what it is -- some internet servers have hanging slug racks!

Y'see -- everything can be explained in terms of 390 technology.

Barry




Bob wrote:

> Dan,
>
> It is a very convoluted traffic path.
>
> YOUR ISPs mail server has delays inherent as to the traffic as the moment, 
> the path to the next server is dependent on traffic load, AND the overall 
> network connections are dependent on the current traffic load.
>
> There is NO way to predict what the loads are at a given time.
>
> I used to work at the funny Five-Sided building, located in VA, with a 
> snail mail address of DC.  For three years we saw the same issues that you 
> do.  We could never figure out the delays either.
>
> There are times when you can predict traffic load to some extent.
>
> 1) When folks first come to work - They check and reply/forward Emails.
>
> 2) Lunch time - Folks have a spike in the load.
>
> 3) the last hour of the day - There is another spike in the load.
>
> 4) when folks get home - another LONGER spike in the load.
>
> Now add the time zones into this and you can SORT of get an idea how 
> traffic will be impacted and flow or not.
>
> BTW - That five-sided building has at LEAST 70,000 email accounts that the 
> "Backbone" servers handle.
>
> Bob - N0DGN
>
>
>> Hi, I'm sure there's a reason - is it that some electrons are slower than
>> others?  I sent mail post at 7:01 pm and it was posted  and back to me at
>> 9:29 pm.  I sent mail post at 8:34 pm and it was posted and back to me at
>> 8:34 pm within the minute.  Is this somewhat random depending on pathway 
>> and
>> some kind of blockage?  This is first time I've noticed this reversal of
>> times happen.   I never looked into the protocol or process for email 
>> going
>> from point A to point B - I know it involves phone lines and at least one
>> storage event on the receiving end.  Was my delayed message just going
>> around and around or was it more likely just waiting on traffic 
>> somewhere?
>> Multiple skip until it hit the right port? R390,  Dan.
>>
>>
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