[ih] London Post

Larry Stewart stewart at serissa.com
Thu Apr 30 16:43:33 PDT 2026 

According to https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/21digi.html?unlocked_article_code=1.e1A.5aC2.6fy6ny25B07b&smid=nytcore-ios-share

the post in london could deliver up to 12 times a day.
The above article is "The Birth of Cheap Communications" from 2010

> On Apr 30, 2026, at 17:17, internet-history-request at elists.isoc.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: Comments re the packet radio discussion (Dan Cross)
>   2. Re: Comments re the packet radio discussion (Dave Crocker)
>   3. Re: Comments re the packet radio discussion (Brian E Carpenter)
>   4. Admin note: Apologies to Bob Purvy and ... please check your
>      sending email address if your message doesn't go to the list
>      (Dan York)
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> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2026 17:03:45 -0400
> From: Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com>
> To: Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Yannis KOROVESIS/COROVESIS" <ycor at iit.demokritos.gr>,
>    internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] Comments re the packet radio discussion
> Message-ID:
>    <CAEoi9W4d7KZAqVTrHW-qxw6DXXPVJD1fihX8mnLNv7zpVcbCTA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:00?PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history
>> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> I once heard that in Victorian England, at least some parts of it, the post
>> was delivered four times a day. Thus you *could* carry on a lengthy debate
>> with someone that only took a few days. Does anyone have a link to data
>> like that?
> 
> I'm afraid I have no direct citations, but in "Dracula" (the Novel,
> not one of the film adaptations) they make several references to the
> post being delivered multiple times a day in London.
> 
>> I was also wondering what the average time was to get a Reply to a question
>> under that system. Nowadays it *might *be only seconds sometimes, but for a
>> lot of people the average email response time is still measured in days.
> 
> I suppose it was similar.  Some traffic would naturally be prioritized
> over other traffic.  :-)
> 
>        - Dan C.
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:09:17 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Dave Crocker <dhc at dcrocker.net>
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] Comments re the packet radio discussion
> Message-ID: <b599b5ba-3deb-421a-963c-0c1adac08879 at dcrocker.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> 
>> On 4/26/2026 7:13 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
>> Thus you*could* carry on a lengthy debate with someone that only took a few days.
> 
> 
> Early 1970s, while I was at UCLA and my brother was at DARPA, across the
> country. Vittal's MSG and the first-ever Answer (reply) command was
> newly available, permitting easy creation of a response, without having
> to copy addresses or Subject.
> 
> Steve and I exchanged a series of messages, over course of perhaps 15
> minutes and I was struck that it felt exactly like a conversation, where
> details of the technology did not intrude on the discussion process.
> 
> d/
> 
> --
> Dave Crocker
> 
> dhc at dcrocker.net
> bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
> mast: @dcrocker at mastodon.social
> +1.408.329.0791
> 
> Volunteer, Silicon Valley Chapter
> Northern California Coastal Region
> Information & Planning Coordinator
> American Red Cross
> dave.crocker2 at redcross.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 1 May 2026 09:16:47 +1200
> From: Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com>
> To: Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com>, Yannis KOROVESIS/COROVESIS
>    <ycor at iit.demokritos.gr>
> Cc: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] Comments re the packet radio discussion
> Message-ID: <43834718-3eda-412b-9c48-c78600081fbd at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> 
>> On 27-Apr-26 14:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
>> I once heard that in Victorian England, at least some parts of it, the post
>> was delivered four times a day.
> 
> That was certainly the case within London, but it wouldn't work intercity.
> (The Penny Post was introduced in 1840.)
> 
> There are surviving letters between Babbage and Lovelace, for example, that
> indicate quite rapid interaction. But they were rich people who could likely
> order a servant to deliver a letter on demand.
> 
> I seem to remember that some Sherlock Holmes stories indicate very rapid
> postal deliveries within London.
> 
>     Brian
> 
>> Thus you *could* carry on a lengthy debate
>> with someone that only took a few days. Does anyone have a link to data
>> like that?
>> 
>> I was also wondering what the average time was to get a Reply to a question
>> under that system. Nowadays it *might *be only seconds sometimes, but for a
>> lot of people the average email response time is still measured in days.
>> 
>> On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 12:46?AM Yannis KOROVESIS/COROVESIS via
>> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> Going further back than the Victorians wikipedia has the following about
>>> "fryktoria" (translated from the Greek original ) as you suspect:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> https://el-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%CE%A6%CF%81%CF%85%CE%BA%CF%84%CF%89%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=el&_x_tr_pto=wapp
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  Yannis
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  On Apr 22, 2026, at 5:14 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  I recently visited Tom Standage?s blog post about The Victorian Internet <
>>> https://tomstandage.wordpress.com/books/the-victorian-internet/> and
>>> noticed that he mentioned that Andrew Odlyzko <
>>> https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~odlyzko/> had read it.  Odlyzko?s name
>>> also came up in some literature about the origins of Tier 1 ISPs.  He used
>>> to post here occasionally.  You might find some of the Internet system
>>> level analysis you?re looking for in his papers.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  --gregbo
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  --
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> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:17:09 +0000
> From: Dan York <york at isoc.org>
> To: Internet History List <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: [ih] Admin note: Apologies to Bob Purvy and ... please check
>    your sending email address if your message doesn't go to the list
> Message-ID: <A764B3BA-1AFE-47FF-9F0F-92B017C2BFFB at isoc.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Internet-history subscribers,
> 
> Hi, all!  First, I have to apologize to Bob Purvy! For some reason his email address got flagged for moderation in Mailman and so all his messages were queueing up. I unfortunately needed to get the admin password for the list reset - and so could only now get in there to approve them - which is why you suddenly got a flood of messages from Bob! I?m sorry about that, Bob. (And the ?mod flag? has been cleared so your future messages should just go to the list.)
> 
> Second, with all the great conversations on this list lately, there have been several messages being put in the moderation queue and flagged as "sent to the list by non-subscribers". It's turned out in multiple cases that people are sending to the list from other email addresses. Mail clients, particularly on mobile phones, seem to make this very easy to do these days.
> 
> If you send a message to the list and it doesn?t appear quickly or you get a moderation message, please check your sending address to be sure it is the one you are subscribed from.
> 
> Regards,
> Dan
> 
> P.S. As another approach, if you often find yourself sending from different addresses, I do see that there are a couple of people who have subscribed to the list from two addresses, but then gone into the Mailman settings and set one of the accounts to not receive any messages. This does allow sending from either address but receiving in only one inbox.
> 
> --
> Dan York, Senior Director, Online Trust & Safety  |  Internet Society
> york at isoc.org | +1-603-439-0024 | https://mastodon.social/@danyork
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> internetsociety.org<https://www.internetsociety.org/> | @internetsociety<https://twitter.com/internetsociety>
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> End of Internet-history Digest, Vol 77, Issue 74
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