Re: POP3 "resume download" extension

Anders Rundegren wrote:

> I've had some thoughts about an extension to POP3 that will let you
> resume a download of an interrupted transfer. These days people tend to
> send each other messages with large attachment, 2-3Mb is not that
> uncommon. Many clients connecting to their ISP, or even the ISP itself,
> have their modems improperly setup which causes a flaky phoneline,
> resulting in a premature disconnect.
>
> At present, these messages will have to be re-downloaded from scratch
> taking a lot of unnecessary bandwidth from the ISP, not to mention
> resources within the system itself. Since a majority of the ISPs today
> are still using POP3, as opposed to IMAP (mostly due to the reduced
> diskspace required when serving a huge numbers of users), I think this
> might be a good idea.
>
> I've spent the last week discussing and developing the idea with a few
> people, and they are all backing up the idea. I now felt it was time to
> take it to this group in order to get a response from a larger group.
>
> We all came to the conslusion that by giving the RETR command a second
> argument specifying the offset of where to start downloading would
> probably be the best idea. Also, there was a discussion on wheather an
> octet range, (a third argument, specifying where the end of the download
> should take place) would be appropriate now that we see a lot more
> portable internet devices where bandwidth is scarce.
>
> A breakdown on savings:
>
> 1) Less consumption of bandwidth
> 2) Less resources used on the servers
> 3) ISPs wishing to have this feature will not be forced to deploy an
> IMAP server
>
> Not to mention happier users getting their files faster and cheaper (in
> Sweden, and most other countries in Europe, flatrates are just a mere
> dream).
>
> // Anders Rundegren

Yes, i guess this would be a good idea to have this option in POP3. I agree
with
Anders that it would not be like IMAP4. Probably i guess we should go ahead
and propose this feature.

Srinivasan