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E-mail clients in personal computer usually will connect to a nearby mail server to send e-mail. They do not directly connect to a remote server close to the recipient, or to a server at a bridge to another net, even if the recipient is there. Why?

Answer

  1. It is faster for the user to send to only one server, only one copy of the text need be transmitted.
  2. The user need not wait while trying to connect to multiple remote servers.
  3. The message can be queued in a spool area and resent at a later time, if the remote server is temporarily down. This will not work well in a personal computer, since it may not be connected for long periods of time.

Incorrect answers:

Many students answered the question as if it had referred to getting incoming mail, not sending outgoing mail. POP and IMAP are not used for outgoing mail, and SMTP requires a computer to be up all the time only to be able to handle incoming mail.

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