Email and Voicemail Overview
Voicemail, fax and several other services can be considered together as variants of "store and forward" messaging - email. Access to search engines and web pages is also possible via email and consequently possible by post without an internet connection or even a "computer" as such.
Introduction
End-to-end Internet Mail exchange is accomplished by using a standardized infrastructure with these components and characteristics:
* An email object
* Global addressing
* An asynchronous sequence of point-to-point transfer mechanisms
* No prior arrangement between MTAs or between Authors and
Recipients
* No prior arrangement between point-to-point transfer services
over the open Internet
* No requirement for Author, Originator, or Recipients to be
online at the same time
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-crocker-email-arch-11
A consequence of these characteristics is that internet email does not require internet connectivity or any sort of two way interactive "telecommunications" service. An "asynchronous sequence of point-to-point transfer mechanisms can be achieved with some or all transfers being by physical media conveyed by couriers or as ordinary postal "mail".
The string of bits comprising an "email object" is a file on physical computer storage and transfer media transferred by writing to and reading from that storage and physically transporting it between the two operations instead of being transmitted at one end and received at the other end of a telecommunications link. The main difference is in the delay or "latency" which is less important for email than for other internet services because the communication is intended to be "asynchronous" not interactive or conversational with an immediate response expected.
It is common for internet email to be replied to on a following day and its global character across multiple time zones often results in overnight turnaround. Additional delays, even of several days as a result of postal transport is merely a slower email service, not qualitatively different in usefulness.
Global connectivity over the open internet is what enables "no prior arrangement" between point-to-point transfers.
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