Mail distributing apparatus, program and mail transmitting method capable of shortening average wait time for completing transmission of mails

• US 7,660,858 B2
• Filed: 05/26/2005
• Issued: 02/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Techfirm Inc.
• Original Assignee: Techfirm Inc.
• Inventors: Tsutsui, Yuichiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Najjar; Saleh
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHAW, ROBERT A
• Application Number:
  US11/140,409
• Publication Number:
  US 20060010216A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,720 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/23 Reliability checks, e.g. acknowledgments or fault reporting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases

Abstract

There is provided a mail distributing apparatus, a program and a mail transmitting method capable of shortening an average wait time for completing transmission of mails. The mail distributing apparatus has a transmission recording section for recording the date and time when a mail has been successfully transmitted last per mailing address, an address selecting section for selecting the addresses to which the mails have been successfully transmitted last on the date and time within a predetermined period by making reference to the transmission recording section when it is commanded to distribute mails to a plurality of addresses and a transmitting section for transmitting the mails to the addresses selected by the address selecting section at first and then transmitting the mails to the other addresses.

Claims

1. A computer program product having computer instructions, recorded on a computer readable storage medium, for enabling a computer executing the computer instructions to perform mail distributing operations comprising:

recording a date and time when a plurality of mails have been successfully transmitted previously per mailing address;

selecting a first group of the mailing addresses to which the mails have been successfully transmitted previously on the date and time within a predetermined selecting period by making reference to said recording when a mail distributing apparatus is commanded to distribute mails to a plurality of addresses;

transmitting mails to the first group of the mailing addresses selected by said selecting at first, and after that, transmitting mails to a second group of the addresses not selected by said selecting;

recording reply times taken to receive fail messages for the each of the mails that have not been successfully transmitted to the first and second group of mailing addresses;

measuring a fail rate which is a ratio of the number of received fail messages to the number of mails transmitted to the second group of addresses; and

determining an average reply time based on said recorded reply times for the addresses in the second group of addresses,

wherein said transmitting further comprises re-transmitting mails to the second group of addresses at periods determined by multiplying the fail rate by a value which is the average reply time divided by a predetermined acceptable number of fail messages to be received within the average reply time for the second group of mailing addresses.

2. The computer program product as set forth in claim 1, wherein said transmitting transmits a predetermined number of the mails to the second group of addresses per mail transmitting period, the mail transmitting period being longer than that at which the mails are transmitted to the first group of addresses.

3. The computer program product as set forth in claim 2, wherein said transmitting determines the number of mails for transmitting per mail transmitting period within a time that is determined such that the number of mails transmitted per average reply time is equal to or less than a number set in advance.

4. The computer program product as set forth in claim 1, wherein said transmitting increases the mail transmitting period when the fail messages are received at a fail rate greater than the fail rate previously measured by said measuring.

5. The computer program product as set forth in claim 1, wherein said transmitting determines the time when the distribution of the mail ends based on the fail rate and the computer informs a user of the time.

6. The computer program product as set forth in claim 1, wherein said transmitting increases the mail transmitting period upon receiving the fail messages indicating that the email has not been transmitted to the address.

7. A computer readable medium storing thereon a program for enabling a computer to operate as a mail distributing apparatus comprising:

transmission recording means for recording a date and time when a plurality of mails have been successfully transmitted previously per mailing address;

address selecting means for selecting a first group of the mailing addresses to which the mails have been successfully transmitted previously on the date and time within a predetermined selecting period by making reference to said recording when a mail distributing apparatus is commanded to distribute mails to a plurality of addresses;

transmitting means for transmitting mails to the first group of the mailing addresses selected by said selecting at first, and after that, transmitting mails to a second group of the addresses not selected by said selecting;

a reply time recording reply times taken to receive fail messages for the each of the mails that have not been successfully transmitted to the first and second group of mailing addresses;

a fail rate measuring means measuring a fail rate which is a ratio of the number of received fail messages to the number of mails transmitted to the second group of addresses; and

determining means for determining an average reply time based on said recorded reply times for the addresses in the second group of addresses,

wherein said transmitting means further comprises re-transmitting mails to the second group of addresses at periods determined by multiplying the fail rate by a value which is the average reply time divided by a predetermined acceptable number of fail messages to be received within the average reply time for the second group of mailing addresses.

8. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 7, wherein said transmitting means transmits a predetermined number of mails to the second group of addresses per mail transmitting period, the mail transmitting period being longer than that at which the mails are transmitted to the first group of addresses.

9. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein said transmitting means determines the number of mails for transmitting per mail transmitting period within a time that is determined in accordance with the such that the number of mails transmitted per average reply is equal to or less than a number set in advance.

10. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 7, wherein said transmitting means increases the mail transmitting period when the fail messages are received at a fail rate greater than the fail rate previously measured by said fail rate measuring means.

11. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 7, wherein said transmitting means determines the time when the distribution of mails ends based on the fail rate and the mail distributing apparatus informs a user of the time.

12. A mail transmission method, implemented in a computer, comprising:

recording a date and time when a plurality of mails have been successfully transmitted previously per mailing address;

selecting a first group of the mailing addresses to which the mails have been successfully transmitted previously on the date and time within a predetermined selecting period by making reference to said recording when a mail distributing apparatus is commanded to distribute mails to a plurality of addresses;

transmitting mails to the first group of the mailing addresses selected by said selecting at first, and after that, transmitting mails to a second group of the addresses not selected by said selecting;

recording reply times taken to receive fail messages for the each of the mails that have not been successfully transmitted to the first and second group of mailing addresses;

measuring a fail rate which is a ratio of the number of received fail messages to the number of mails transmitted to the second group of addresses; and

determining an average reply time based on said recorded reply times for the addresses in the second group of addresses,

wherein said transmitting further comprises re-transmitting mails to the second group of addresses at periods determined by multiplying the fail rate by a value which is the average reply time divided by a predetermined acceptable number of fail messages to be received within the average reply time for the second group of mailing addresses.

13. The mail transmission method as set forth in claim 12, wherein said transmitting step transmits a predetermined number of the mails to the second group of addresses per mail transmitting period, the mail transmitting period being longer than that at which the mails are transmitted to the first group of addresses.

14. The mail transmission method as set forth in claim 13, wherein said transmitting step determines the number of mails for transmitting per mail transmitting period within a time that is determined such that the number of mails transmitted per average reply time is equal to or less than a number set in advance.

15. The mail transmission method as set forth in claim 12, wherein said transmitting increases the mail transmitting period when the fail messages are received at a fail rate greater than the fail rate previously measured by said measuring step.

16. The mail transmission method as set forth in claim 12, wherein the time when the distribution of mails ends is determined by said transmitting based on the fail rate and the mail distributing apparatus informs a user of the time.