Mail gets passed through a lot of different machines, all of which can have a different problem at any given time. Gelinas says that while there is no one problem that needs to be fixed, ITD is working on correcting as quickly as possible the smaller bottlenecks that have led to slow delivery of e-mail. Gluski says that for the most part, delivery of e-mail is very fast. When e-mail is delivered less quickly, users see it as a big problem because they have become so accustomed to speedy delivery. If you happen to pick it up one time and that tone is not there, you see it as a real problem.
Telephone communication is designed that way.
E-mail is not designed in that specific way. In practice, most of the time it happens, so people have come to expect that. And usually we can provide that. But when instant delivery doesn't happen, it is not always because something in the system is broken.