Sending Electronic Mail, or E-Mail, using computers is similar to sending letters through ordinary mail. When you write a letter, address it and post it, it is collected, transported and delivered at that address.
In a network, each user is given a unique identification, called E-Mail address. If you type the letter and the E-Mail address of the receiver, the E-Mail facility will take care of sending it over the network to the right person. You can send a message to someone in another office, another city or another continent with equal ease, using your computer.
While most WANs like CompuServe also offer E-Mail as one of their services, there are networks set up specifically for this purpose. Examples of such networks are MCl-Mail and Telecom Gold.
Receiving, storing, forwarding and monitoring of mail are handled by dedicated software called E-Mail software. Some well-known E-Mail software are cc:Mail and Microsoft-Mail.
The advantage of E-Mail is that the receiver's machine need not be working when the mail arrives. It is put in the receiver's mailbox, that is essentially a subdirectory that stores all the mail received. When the machine is accessed, the user is informed of the arrival of mail. Since E-Mail is very fast and reliable, many offices and universities have started using it for sending letters, memos and applications, instead of normal mail.
