I am now more than ever convinced that AH needs an independant BB

[Thrawn]

I noticed that while http://www.hitechcreationS.com was down, that http://www.hitechcreation.com was up.  Perhaps during an outage HTC can put a message on that site.

[Skuzzy]

Staga, HTC was good enough to allow me an email address, temporarily, until I can get an Intenet connection.

MOSQ, HTC has done full list emails, so I know what it takes to get it done.  Let's leave it at that.

[MOSQ]

Skuzzy,
I thought I'd give you a chance to amend your bandwidth excuse statement, but since you've chosen the dodge of "I know what it takes to get it done. Let's leave it at that" answer,  I have to take my shot at this.
I'll leave it at the fact I don't believe it would take 24 hours on an OC-3 line to send out emails to the entire Aces High Community.
Maybe they have an incredibly poor email server, maybe they just don't want to be bothered with writing an outage email because they don't know how long they will be down since it's out of their control, or who knows why, but to blame it on bandwidth is absolutely ludicrous.

DS-3 = T-3 = 28 x  T-1 or 44.736 Mbps
OC-3 = 3 x DS-3 or 155.52 Mbps

The email from the Aces High bulletin board notifying me of your reply is 3kb. An outage email would be the same size.

The below numbers are from Arial Software site at :http://www.arialsoftware.com/bandwidth.htm

They are based on 10kb messages, 3 times as large as an outage message.  A DS-3/T-3 is capable of sending 2,000,000 bulk 10kb emails in one hour.  I estimate an OC-3 would be capable of around 5,000,000 emails in ONE hour.

Available Bandwidth /  Data Rate (bits per second) / Average emails / hour
 
28.8K Modem / 28.8 Kbps/  1300
 
56K Modem / 56 Kbps / 2500
 
T1  1.544 Mbps /  72,000
 
DSL  512 Kbps to 8 Mbps / 23,000-370,000
 
T3  44.736 Mbps / 2,000,000

So, let's see your statement: "If they had an OC3, then they could send out the emails in less than 24 hours. "

That means that if the only problem is bandwidth as you claim, we must have 5,000,000 emails/hour x 24 hours = users in the AH community.

I too run an internet based company that relies on subscriber members. We always send out emails to the entire membership when we have an expected or out of our control situation when we go down. We have no problem sending an email to everyone, it's just plain good customer service.

As I said earlier, your bandwidth excuse is ludicrous.
I've lost all respect for your opinions.

[TheFatz]

Mosq I agree with you.  Anybody remember the umark.com days.  I do.

TheFatz

[Thrawn]

MOSQ, who are you arguing with?

Skuzzy said, "If they had an OC3, then they could send out the emails in less than 24 hours."

So apparently you just proved his point.


Does HTC have an DS-3, let alone an OC-3?  How much of that bandwidth do you think is taken up by the game?  I don't know.  You don't know.  But you know what?  I bet Skuzzy knows.  Probably has something to do with his being there internet connection for years.

You're missing the forest for the trees.

[moose]

MOSQ you should know by now that htc does not divulge subscriber #s

Seeing as Skuzzy ran the connection for htc until recently, I think he knows what he's talking about.

[Trip01]

Originally posted by moose
MOSQ you should know by now that htc does not divulge subscriber #s

Seeing as Skuzzy ran the connection for htc until recently, I think he knows what he's talking about.

I'm sure he does, but he is still wrong in this case. Even allowing for protocol overhead you could shift at least 1000 3k emails every second over a DS3. That's a million customers in 17 minutes.

But the pipe size is a complete irrelevance - the limiting factor would be the mail server.

I run an ISP with 700,000 subscribers and we email them all from time to time. About 50,000 of them subscribe to an announcement list which is used specifically to notify them of this type of problem. I can understand that HTC might have very good reasons for not doing something similar but the size fo their pipe certainly isnt it.

Trip

[Wlfgng]

ok I have to say it.

If someone can't live with the BBS being down for a day.. maybe they need to think about gettin' a life.

[lord dolf vader]

what is up with the regulars dogpiling anyone who calls another regular on a roadkill?  scuzzy said somthing ( apperently )incorrect another professional asks for clarification gets none and then states the reasons in detail as to why he thinks the statment was wrong and then gets attacked several times .  happens over and over . you boys think scuzzy needs a buddy for his fights ? or just the old over the hill white boy boys club crap?

[Rude]

What in the world is wrong with some of you....you would think that any of this actually matters.

My four kids act with more restraint.

[Seeker]

Don't you dare, Trip!

(even if it is yours....     )

[Trip01]

Originally posted by Seeker
Don't you dare, Trip!

Dont what? Mention bigweek? Ok.

Trip

"Dont mention the war! I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!"

[Flossy]

Originally posted by Trip01
Dont what? Mention bigweek? Ok.

Trip

"Dont mention the war! I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!"

LOL, Trip!  

Actually, as we were reminded in that "unmentionable place" yesterday - there is an alternative independant BBS - at http://www.aceshigh.furballcentral.com/.  I am sure SNA won't mind me advertising it for him....  then if these forums do go down, there is an alternative place to post/read any news anybody may pick up....  

[MOSQ]

Thrawn and Moose,
I have to admit when I first read your replies to my post I was a little tweaked. But after I thought about it I realized that to someone who doesn't work in the internet/telco world, it would make sense to believe Skuzzy's statement based on his experience of being HT's internet provider. But for folks like myself and Trip01 it was blatantly incorrect and I simply could not let it go unchallenged.  We have an idea of just how much data bandwidth a DS-3 and OC-3 provides, which would be difficult for you to understand if it's your first look at these issues.
To bring it into better terms, WorldCom/UUnet carries about 1/2 of the global Internet traffic. WorldCom connects Silicon Valley/San Jose to Tokyo with a DS-3, Los Angeles to Tokyo with an OC-3. And those lines are carrying voice as well as data traffic.
That's why Skuzzy's explanation why HTC doesn't send emails to us because the pipes aren't big enough and examples of DS-3/OC-3  times to do it rang the BS alarm for me.
I personally think HTC should send out emails to us when they have an expected outage or forsee a problem in advance, instead of just posting it in the Announcements area. But that's just my opinion on their business operations. They can run their business as they see fit. But don't use lame excuses like the number of emails would jam an OC-3 pipe for 24 hours.
My only suggestion is that whenever reading/replying to  forum threads, always apply your critical thinking process first, research areas you are unfamiliar with second, then reply third.

Wlfgng,
Maybe you missed it in the thread, but the issue (at least for me and a few others) was not the BBS being down, it was that the game itself was down. I, like others, wondered if the phone company had pulled the plug.  It was frustrating to keep trying to log on every hour and not have my one vice available when I needed a fix! IMHO it would be good customer service to get an email that says,"The phone company trenching machine cut the fiber to our office, we'll be off-line for a day. Sorry for the inconvenience, we're working with them to expedite a fix" or something like that.  

Enough said on the bandwidth topic unless Skuzzy would care to reply and set me straight. I find the entire internet and bandwidth topic very interesting and have watched in fascination for years as T-1 lines grew to OC-192, an amount of data that is almost impossible to comprehend.  
 
For anyone that is curious about the internet, the WorldCom maps and real time latency sites are interesting.
http://www1.worldcom.com/global/about/network/maps/
http://www1.worldcom.com/global/about/network/latency/