RFC 1168 (rfc1168) - Page 1 of 18


Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay services



Alternative Format: Original Text Document



Network Working Group                                         A. Westine
Request for Comments: 1168                                    A. DeSchon
                                                               J. Postel
                                                               C.E. Ward
                                                                 USC/ISI
                                                               July 1990

              INTERMAIL AND COMMERCIAL MAIL RELAY SERVICES


STATUS OF THIS MEMO

   This RFC discusses the history and evolution of the Intermail and
   Commercial mail systems.  The problems encountered in operating a
   store-and-forward mail relay between commercial systems such as
   Telemail, MCI Mail and Dialcom are also discussed. This RFC provides
   information for the Internet community, and does not specify any
   standard.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

INTRODUCTION

   The evolution of large electronic mail systems testifies to the
   increasing importance of electronic mail as a means of communication
   and coordination throughout the scientific research community.

   This paper is a summary of the development of, and a status report
   on, an experiment in protocol interoperation between mail systems of
   different design. USC/Information Sciences Institute (ISI) began work
   on this experiment in 1981 and over the years has provided an
   evolving demonstration service for users to exchange mail between the
   Internet and a few commercial mail systems.

   Recently other organizations have begun to provide similar services,
   demonstrating the ongoing need for interoperation of the Internet and
   the commercial mail systems.  We believe that ISI's pioneering work
   in this area has promoted this expansion of service.

   These systems include the Internet mail system, the US Sprint
   Telemail system, the MCI Mail system, and the Dialcom systems. All of
   the systems were designed to operate autonomously, with no convenient
   mechanism to allow users of one system to send electronic mail to
   users on another system.

   The Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay (CMR) services described in
   this paper were developed to provide a means for sending mail between
   the Internet and these commercial mail systems.





Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward