November 23, 2006 00:10
Hello All,
Yes you should be able to run the Pactor PIB with a Mac. The Pactor PIB is a mode in the Pactor III firmware which allows computers to establish PPP links over the Pactor protocol. Hence the name PIB which stands for Pactor IP Bridge.
The PIB also implements a hayes compatible comand set which in theory allows a generic computer (such as a mac) to establish a pactor link without having to install any kind of special software.
Does the PIB work? Yes. Does it work well? not unless you have specialized compression software.
Here is the problem. Pactor (as many of you have experienced) has a ** VERY ** slow line turn around. This means that it might take a long time (seconds or 10's seconds) to reverse the flow of data. Given that most internet protocols (such as mail POP and SMTP) were designed for duplex networks with 0 latency in the line turn arounds poor performance is observed over pactor when using them.
Lets take a look at sending an e-mail. Internet e-mail is sent using a protocol called SMTP. Smtp requires 5 line turn arounds to send a mesg + one line turn around for every e-mail address in the to, cc, and bcc fields. This means that i can take minutes to send a one line e-mail, over pactor, to a few people.
The other problem with internet protocols is that there is no compression. Pactor does implement RLE compression but this is not as good as the block compression used in efficient compression programs such as our XGate software.
Finally, Internet protocols don't know how to restart a failed download caused by a drop in a satellite link.
So the bottom line is that you will not be happy with the performance of your mail application running over the PIB.
Note that we (Global Marine Networks, LLC) are members of a PIB based HF network with stations here in the US, EU, and Africa. XNet has choosen not to support standard internet protocols over PIB because of poor performance issues mentioned above. XNet users are required to use our compression based e-mail client (XGate) and our Weather Product called WeatherNet when using the Pactor PIB.
For more information on XNet visit http://www.xnetmail.com
Thanks,
--luis
Luis Soltero, Ph.D., MCS
Director of Software Development, CTO
Global Marine Networks, LLC
StarPilot, LLC
Tel: 865-379-8723
Fax: 865-681-5017
E-Mail: lsoltero@globalmarinenet.net
Web: http://www.globalmarinenet.net
Web: http://www.starpilotllc.com
Yes you should be able to run the Pactor PIB with a Mac. The Pactor PIB is a mode in the Pactor III firmware which allows computers to establish PPP links over the Pactor protocol. Hence the name PIB which stands for Pactor IP Bridge.
The PIB also implements a hayes compatible comand set which in theory allows a generic computer (such as a mac) to establish a pactor link without having to install any kind of special software.
Does the PIB work? Yes. Does it work well? not unless you have specialized compression software.
Here is the problem. Pactor (as many of you have experienced) has a ** VERY ** slow line turn around. This means that it might take a long time (seconds or 10's seconds) to reverse the flow of data. Given that most internet protocols (such as mail POP and SMTP) were designed for duplex networks with 0 latency in the line turn arounds poor performance is observed over pactor when using them.
Lets take a look at sending an e-mail. Internet e-mail is sent using a protocol called SMTP. Smtp requires 5 line turn arounds to send a mesg + one line turn around for every e-mail address in the to, cc, and bcc fields. This means that i can take minutes to send a one line e-mail, over pactor, to a few people.
The other problem with internet protocols is that there is no compression. Pactor does implement RLE compression but this is not as good as the block compression used in efficient compression programs such as our XGate software.
Finally, Internet protocols don't know how to restart a failed download caused by a drop in a satellite link.
So the bottom line is that you will not be happy with the performance of your mail application running over the PIB.
Note that we (Global Marine Networks, LLC) are members of a PIB based HF network with stations here in the US, EU, and Africa. XNet has choosen not to support standard internet protocols over PIB because of poor performance issues mentioned above. XNet users are required to use our compression based e-mail client (XGate) and our Weather Product called WeatherNet when using the Pactor PIB.
For more information on XNet visit http://www.xnetmail.com
Thanks,
--luis
Luis Soltero, Ph.D., MCS
Director of Software Development, CTO
Global Marine Networks, LLC
StarPilot, LLC
Tel: 865-379-8723
Fax: 865-681-5017
E-Mail: lsoltero@globalmarinenet.net
Web: http://www.globalmarinenet.net
Web: http://www.starpilotllc.com