This was posted in the winlink programs group. The mesh network was 1800x faster than 1200 bps packet, 199x faster than 9600 bps packet, and 144x faster than VARA FM.
Chris VE3NRT
AJ7C and I did some throughput testing (He did the heavy lifting; I just crunched the numbers). I think you'll find this illuminating.
Throughput sending a 94.4 KByte message:
1200 BAUD PACKET WINLINK (direct; no digipeats) = .4 kbps (400 bps)
9600 BAUD PACKET WINLINK (direct; no digipeats) = 3.7 kbps
VARA FM WINLINK (direct; no digipeats) = 5.1 kbps
TELNET POST OFFICE (AREDN MESH NETWORK - three network hops) = 737.4k kbps
Orv W6BI
I agree that 1200 bps is SLLOOOWWWWW and if a message has to go via a digipeater can be 2-3x slower than that because every packet has to be repeated and then extra overhead to manage that too with timeouts.
The issue becomes how do you build out a network to run AREDN MESH across a wide area like York Region?