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From: shadow AT shadowgard DOT com
To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 15:12:25 -0800
Subject: Re: Networks
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On 20 Jan 2004 at 9:44, Gary Welles wrote:

> With the nodelist being all telephone numbers, if FidoNet is part
> of a network, it's the telephone network. 

Actually, the nodelist hasn't been "all telephone 
numbers" for some time.

Do a search for nodes with a "phone number" field 
that starts "000-". The remaining digits will 
(usually) be an IP addresses with "-" replacing "."

And a lot of the "private" entries have flags 
showing them to actually be "internet only" nodes. 
There are at least a thousand nodes that can *only* 
be connected to via the Internet. 

And a lot more than can be connected to by phone 
*or* via the internet.

Still more can make outgoing connections via the 
internet, but not accept incoming ones.

> Certainly from a FidoNet user's perspective and as been suggested an
> alternative to the Internet.  Randy Bush's article explains it all for
> us: 
> 
>     "FidoNet is a point-to-point and store-and-forward email WAN
>     which uses modems on the direct-dial telephone network."

And Randy left Fidonet some years ago.
 
And even before he left there were issues with 
things like nodes in Europe that could *only* be 
connected to via an ISDN "modem". Regular modems 
couldn't connect to those nodes.

Now we've got half a dozen or more incompatible ways 
of connecting via the Internet.
--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at krypton dot rain dot com