ABC's of why AOL will never never work for on-line Racing!!!

Latency can increase dramatically on AOL due to how their Internet traffic is handled. AOL uses a central location in Herndon, VA to link their customers to the Internet. How this effects you is that rather than having an Internet 'presence' in your local area, your access actually starts in ***ia. Let's say you live in Phoenix. Rather than logging onto the Internet and having mplayer.com's Phoenix game cluster nearby, the closest cluster to you is now in Herndon. The distance from your computer in Phoenix to that cluster in Herndon is obviously much farther than if your Internet 'presence' began in Phoenix and you were playing on the Phoenix game cluster. This difference in connection speed may mean the ability to play the faster, more latency 'sensitive' games, and only being able to play turn-based games. Thanks Don Wilshe

Don, FWIW, I wouldn't dream of getting on the net from AOL much less anything else other than chat and news................I just want to use up my free time. Tim A. Deatherage "Admitted Sim ***"

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>Latency can increase dramatically on AOL due to how their Internet >traffic is handled. AOL uses a >central location in Herndon, VA to link their customers to the Internet. >How this effects you is that >rather than having an Internet 'presence' in your local area, your >access actually starts in ***ia. >Let's say you live in Phoenix. Rather than logging onto the Internet and >having mplayer.com's Phoenix >game cluster nearby, the closest cluster to you is now in Herndon. The >distance from your computer in >Phoenix to that cluster in Herndon is obviously much farther than if >your Internet 'presence' began in >Phoenix and you were playing on the Phoenix game cluster. This >difference in connection speed may mean >the ability to play the faster, more latency 'sensitive' games, and only >being able to play turn-based >games. Thanks >Don Wilshe

For all practical purposes, what Don says below is true. However, the real factor is not physical distance. The number of pieces of network equipment (and what make/model they are) that span the distance is what really matters. Usually, a greater distance means more "stops" along the way, but not always. -Bill -- Bill Mette | "A person is smart. People are dumb." MCSNet, Chicago | - K MiB

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> For all practical purposes, what Don says below is true. However, the > real factor is not physical distance. The number of pieces of network > equipment (and what make/model they are) that span the distance is what > really matters. Usually, a greater distance means more "stops" along the > way, but not always. > -Bill

Just a historical note: I agree that having one central point through which nationwide network traffic passes isn't a game-stopper. The CRIS network, now Concentric Network, used this architecture (to my level of understanding, which isn't high ;) to become a nationwide ISP (www.concentric.net). Concentric supported internet *** systems widely in the past, including some deal to carry TEN (not sure if they are still working together). All my *** packets on Concentric go to Illinois before routing on. We had 55ms latency from Concentric's local ISP to game host in those days (doesn't include delays through my modem). - Matt WarBirds: =para=