Interoperability and performance issues in HF e-mail

Electronic mail is particularly tolerant of the sometimes challenging HF radio communications medium. Its latency tolerance and store-and-forward delivery mechanism cope naturally with slow links and the occasional outage. This paper documents the results of a study of the interoperability and performance of leading standards applicable to e-mail service over HF networks, and recommends specific protocol suites for next-generation networks as well as directions for further research.