When I was in college in the late 1980's I worked for AT&T as a co-op student. During my second quarter I was given the task of rolling out AT&T Mail to our site and training people how to use it. At the time I thought the service was pretty neat. It had email-to-fax and email-to-snail-mail gateways. It was used mostly by AT&T, but the service was available to the public and I found the governor of Kentucky listed in the directory. It didn't take me long to realize I could send email to @attmail.com from my school account, which raised a few eyebrows about me "hacking into AT&T Mail". When it came time to graduate I had promised myself I would get an AT&T Mail account if my future employer did not have Internet access (turns out they did).
I was reminiscing about the service, so I visited Google and Wikipedia trying to find information. I cannot find anything. The search terms bring up information about today's at&t email service via their DSL service or really old archives containing messages from people with @attmail.com email addresses. Perhaps I'm the only person on the planet who thinks this topic is interesting, but in case I'm not, does anyone have more information about AT&T Mail? Until my last move I still had all of my manuals, but they're long gone. I want to create a Wikipedia entry. I believe AT&T Mail was as significant as Compuserve or Prodigy.
You might try EasyLink, I had that with Western Union and AT@T took it over. I remember using it with friends, sending mail to Fax and linked into the USPS MailGram service.
I'm not familiiar with that specific package, but at that time corporations were starting email systems. Initially they were internal but eventually were Internet as well. My employer at the time (late 1980s) installed PROFS, which was a mainframe based system. Very reliable, I was sad when they cut it off.
I'm not sure how big the various early email systems--AT&T'e Mail, EasyLink, Prodigy, and Compuserve were. In the grand scheme of things they were relatively small as most people did not have computers back then, and many who did weren't connected.
If a fading memory serves, I think Compuserve was the biggest.
A related question is: When did email--using today's standards-- begin? That is, when did people get email addresses of "PERSON@SITE" and there was an Internet capable of routing such messages to the appropriate site.
I recall Compuserve having optional extra-fee links to send a Western Union Mailgram. I had Compuserve for a while but never used it; had no real need and was always afraid of running up the bill; things that I wanted cost extra.
In my opinion, general email issues, especially historical issues like this, are part of the telecom world and appropriate for us.
Per your question, I don't think AT&T's own foray into email affected its telecom business; the email back then was just too limited to have a specific effect.
IMHO, back then email in general tended to reduce long distance telephone traffic because people would communicate by email instead of a toll call. Now it doesn't matter since so many people have cheap or free long distance. For myself easy availability of email makes me send more quickie messages to friends, and I don't telephone as much.
I think email, including emailed responses to webpages, has really done a job on the US Postal Service. I know today I use email for miscellaneous inquiries and comments for which in the past I'd use postcards, and of course the reply is via email instead of a letter. E-commerce in general--web pages as catalogs and to accept orders, electronic money transfers, etc., also has hurt the USPS. I suspect we'll soon go to five day a week mail. I have mixed feelings about this since I think the USPS still has a very important role to play in commerce and society. There are some communications that still are better mailed, particularly important correspondance or documents via Certified or Registered Mail and given the Internet's weaknesses there will be no substitute for some time.
As to AT&T and other carriers (short and long haul), the growth of email and the Internet data lines to carry it as resulted in a huge growth of data transmissions.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I think there will always be a job for the Postal Service: after all, our business and government will be dependent on paper records for the foreseeable future. The Western way of life revolves around written records, and there has to be some way to get them from place to place.
Our businesses, educational institutions, and governments still use paper as the primary medium-of-record. Despite the plethora of electronic alternatives, the post office is still, and probably always will be, in the business of carrying the mountain of Purchase Orders, checks, bills, magazines, stock certificates, bank statements, greeting cards, and personal messages that keep the wheels of society spinning.
Having said that, I can't help but wonder if the electronic signatures that were made possible by public-key cryptography will someday supplant the paper records we now rely on. It would be a monumental change, and would require that every family have both access to the Internet and a computer, not to mention training in electronic record-keeping.
I doubt it will happen: there's nothing like getting a letter that you can read anywhere and anytime you want, again and again. (If you don't believe me, just ask any other ex-GI). Bill Horne Temporary Moderator
Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never see your post! Thanks!
We have a new address for email submissions: telecomdigestmoderator atsign telecom-digest.org. This is only for those who submit posts via email: if you use a newsreader or a web interface to contribute to the digest, you don't need to change anything.
SNDMSG & READMAIL. In the early 1970's, Ray Tomlinson was working on a small team developing the TENEX operating system, with local email programs called SNDMSG and READMAIL. In late 1971, Tomlinson developed the first ARPANET email application when he updated SNDMSG by adding a program called CPYNET capable of copying files over the network, and informed his colleagues by sending them an email using the new program with instructions on how to use it.
To extend the addressing to the network, Tomlinson chose the "commercial at" symbol to combine the user and host names, providing the naturally meaningful notation "user@host" that is the standard for email addressing today. These early programs had simple functionality and were command line driven, but established the basic transactional model that still defines the technology -- email gets sent to someone's mailbox.
There will always be the Postal Service, but I think the volume of mail it handles will significantly shrink. It is now losing money and another stamp increase is coming in May. Despite huge investments in automation and reductions in service (fewer mailboxes, fewer collections), they'll still gonna have to rethink their model.
When they first spoke of the "paperless office", paper consumption actually increased with the coming of "office automation". But now things have changed and paper transactions are being reduced as follows:
1) Bill payments: Many people have automatic pay billing--the creditor directly deducts money from a checking account--eliminating the need to write a check and mail it in, and for it to be processed.
2) E-Commerce: instead of filling out an order form from a printed catalog, many consumers order from a web page. No paper transaction.
3) Official correspondance via email: Many formal contracts are now sent as .pdf files with an email instead of a hard copy.
4) Social correspondance--cheap telepony has killed off what was left of this, but the Internet is finishing the job. This year, with things rushed, I couldn't get and send out birthday cards to some friends, but sent an email instead. Tacky, but did the job. The web allows sharing of family pictures electronically instead of mailing prints.
5) Online account statements: Some firms only print out account statements upon request (and for a fee); they may be viewed on the web.
6) Annual Reports: Company no longer send out glossy annual reports and proxy statements, but a simple card advising where to look for it all on the web. A large company that has many hundreds of thousands of shareowners saves a huge amount of postage and printing.
7) Govt interaction: Many govt agencies (of all levels) have websites in which a citizen can renew their driver's license, get a permit, register for this or that; all eliminating filling out a paper form and a personal visit. Private companies also allow customers to use the web to register, get an account, etc.
[] I suspect e-commerce permits a greater risk of fraud, but I suspect organizations are willing to assume that risk thinking it's still cheaper than processing paper by hand. Face it, every time someone fills out a form it means an employee must read the form and enter it; that means the employee must have a desk and computer terminal. By having customers do it, they eliminate all that which is a big saving. Paying electronically means no one has to open a letter and handle the check.
That's happening extensively now in the business world. Consumers don't all have computers, but most businesses do, and with standard software. Friends who work in law offices tell me "signature on file" is good enough for much of the word, and email is used very extensively.
Personally, I like reading stuff on paper, not the screen, for many years. But the rest of the world is changing. Many people I deal with prefer an email to a hardcopy report.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I suppose it's like anything else: first a few, then a lot, then it's old news. Since I'm a Thawte Notary, I'm ready for the change, but I think most people will still prefer a written record: they may _send_ a contract as a PDF file, but they'll still want the signatures on a paper copy that they can show in court.
Bill Horne Temporary Moderator
Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never see your post! Thanks!
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I still pine for both AT&T Mail and MCI Mail. For what it's worth, I believe I still retain a copy of Vint Cerf's final, wistful, shut-down/farewell message, sent to all remaining MCI Mail customers sometime within the last few hours before the plug got pulled, and can try to dig it out and post it here, if desired.
Actually even e-mail and web pages are passé. My daughter received a wedding invitation, and then notification that the wedding was called off, via (I think) Facebook.
I am not on Facebook. Whatever they do there, they're going to do without me.
I believe the person@site style of addressing goes back to the Arpanet, so you could research it in the Request For Comments RFC archives. Originally there was a hosts table that related site names to IP addresses. Around the same time that Arpanet was turning into the Internet there was the beginning of the Domain Name System with the now-familiar hierarchical dotted site names and the name servers that replaced the hosts table. These are related because the Arpanet was small enough for the hosts table to be maintained and centrally administered; but when the Internet was opened up to many more users it became impossible to maintain the name->address mapping as a table. I once wrote a piece comparing the domain name system with the telephone information operator system as it was back then. Your local information operator had numbers for your area code, and would ask you "what city?". If you needed a number for a distant area code you had to dial that area code before the information number. And then much earlier than that the information operation was even less centralized, so that each city or exchange would have its own information operators.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I never forget the day that I saw a letter cart filled to overflowing with DNS requests in Jon Postel's office, with a sign on it that said "I'm giving up control!" - I asked him what it was, of course, and he told me that everyone had finally convinced him that DNS had grown too large for him to manage personally.
Only the good die young.
Bill Horne Temporary Moderator
Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never see your post! Thanks!
We have a new address for email submissions: telecomdigestmoderator atsign telecom-digest.org. This is only for those who submit posts via email: if you use a newsreader or a web interface to contribute to the digest, you don't need to change anything.
In about 1989 or so I knew email was going to be a good thing. I was then accessing Compuserve and local BBSs. I talked to Telus, the then provincial telco and was able to get an X.400 email address with which I experimented sending email to the Compuservice account and so forth. Both CompuServe and this X.400 service was available via the X.25 packet network accessible at the blistering speed of 2400 bps. But there was no one else available to email to so I dropped it. Expensive at about $50 per month IIRC.
I may have used an X.400 to fax gateway to send a fax for a small contest involving the person who was the furthest away to send a fax. I won. However the prize was a roll of fax paper so that was quite useless to me.
I still remember the days of the host file. It still exists in virtually every Linux distro in /etc/hosts
***** Moderator's Note *****
All current Windows boxes have a HOSTS file as well, and any entry in it will prevent a DNS lookup. For that reason, it's a favorite target of spyware: every malware author seeks to poison the HOSTS file so as to deny AV software access to updates, to redirect search-engine requests, and to prevent access to sites that warn users about malware.
However, the HOSTS file can be very useful in small environments, such as SOHO LANs. If there's a local online phonebook, putting an entry into the hosts files will speed up access by preventing DNS lookups and avoiding NAT redirections.
We have a new address for email submissions: telecomdigestmoderator atsign telecom-digest.org. This is only for those who submit posts via email: if you use a newsreader or a web interface to contribute to the digest, you don't need to change anything.
If you want to the ability to go to most malware/adware sites, you can get a free replacement hosts file which directs them to 127.0.0.0 (i.e Limbo). Go to:
formatting link
Read the instructions, download hosts.zip and install it replaceing the almost empty one that comes with windows.
After Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:16:55 -0400, in response to a submission then by T , the Temporary Moderator Bill Horne noted:
The HOSTS file can be useful as well to deny malicious links access to the domains they wish to connect to -- lines of the form
127.0.0.1 known.malware.site
will cause any link to "known.malware.site" to terminate in the "local loopback" IP address 127.0.0.1, which means nothing happens.
Some anti-malware software populates the HOSTS file with literally thousands of these "inoculations" against malware, very effectively, I might add :-) .
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