Clear bouncing emails from Xtra

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3892 posts

Uber Geek

#691135 25-Sep-2012 13:40

mattwnz: If they do provide email though then they have to make it reliable.

Actually no they don't. Internet in the consumer market is only ever sold as a 'best effort' service and this is accepted all over the world.

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Ragnor

8219 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#691136 25-Sep-2012 13:43

It's not an exact science email is best effort, spam filtering is best effort etc.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#691145 25-Sep-2012 13:56

Ragnor: It's not an exact science email is best effort, spam filtering is best effort etc.

Actually I really have to disagree with that as well.

Email delivery is really well documented in RFCs and is very exact.

In the case of my mail servers, every incoming and out going message attempt is logged. I can quickly review my mail logs to see what happened to a message.

Last week, for example I made contact with Victoria University because their mail system was instructing one of my mail systems not to accept messages because of a mistake in a configuration made by Microsoft (which as it happens is impacting users around the world on other mail systems as well that also rely on information set by Microsoft mail admins.)

One phone call to the university was all it took for them to get their mail admin to call me. One email to the NZ operators list was all it took for some of their other staff to also take some ownership of the issue and take some action.

In this instance the problem, based on comments from Tom's article, would appear to be that Telecom is not getting the log information from the Yahoo mail servers, so they have no idea how big or small the problem really is until phones on their helpdesk start ringing.

This is not a lack of science, it's just a lack of good management by Telecom.

As you all saw from Gary's post last week, TelstraClear checked their mail logs promptly and did something about it, they proved out that the fault is not in their network. That is a very exact science.

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mattwnz

20152 posts

Uber Geek

#691151 25-Sep-2012 14:07

DonGould:
mattwnz: If they do provide email though then they have to make it reliable.

Actually no they don't.? Internet in the consumer market is only ever sold as a 'best effort' service and this is accepted all over the world.

I was meaning for the benefit of the ISP, as a more reliable service reduces their support costs. But if it isn't relaible, then they have to bear the cost of people complaining, their support staff being tied up dealing with it, and the media writing stories about the problems. Most other providers though don't have the problems that yahoo appears to have with their email services. I have spent many many hours dealing with clients who use xtra/yahoo and have had prolems with email, so these days I just tell them to not use it and to use gmail instead if they want a free email service.

mattwnz

20152 posts

Uber Geek

#691153 25-Sep-2012 14:12

DonGould: In this instance the problem, based on comments from Tom's article, would appear to be that Telecom is not getting the log information from the Yahoo mail servers, so they have no idea how big or small the problem really is until phones on their helpdesk start ringing.

I would have thought that any provider, providing an email service, would have direct access to mail logs. That is sort of a fundamental requirement when dealing with email problems. Even with my web host, I can access the mail logs and see all the incoming emails and the reasons why some emails have been accepted and rejected from the mail server.

mclean

581 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#691155 25-Sep-2012 14:13

freitasm: Wait a minute. Was there any name calling in this discussion? If there was then I missed it.

We "deserve it for being stupid enough to still be with Telecom" was the earlier comment.

Am I mistaken or has the dreaded MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com gone quiet for the first time in a month? Fingers crossed!

mattwnz

20152 posts

Uber Geek

#691162 25-Sep-2012 14:18

mclean:
freitasm: Wait a minute. Was there any name calling in this discussion? If there was then I missed it.

We "deserve it for being stupid enough to still be with Telecom" was the earlier comment.

Am I mistaken or has the dreaded MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com?gone quiet for the first time in a month?? Fingers crossed!

A lot of people here are on telecom as they offer/ed some of the best broadband plans. Although probably not too many use the ISPs email address as their primary email address. I only use mine as my junkmail email address which I use when I need an email address to fill in on a website, and don't want my domain one to be spammed. So it is sort of my spam email box.

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DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#691166 25-Sep-2012 14:21

mattwnz:I would have thought that any provider, providing an email service, would have direct access to mail logs.

They do. However Telecom is not providing the email service, Yahoo is.

Yahoo is not providing the helpdesk service though and obviously not doing anything to review mail logs and give Telecom a heads up that there is a problem that they might want to tell their helpdesk provider about.

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DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#691168 25-Sep-2012 14:26

mattwnz: I only use mine as my junkmail email address which I use when I need an email address to fill in on a website, and don't want my domain one to be spammed. So it is sort of my spam email box.

wow! That speaks volumes about what every other user should expect from the mail system.

What you're saying is that what others consider an important resource you just consider a rubbish bin.

I'm not saying this is unreasonable on your part, how you choose to use a service you pay for is between you and the party that provide it to you.

However, I do wonder how many other users have the same attitude to the xtraYahoo mail system that you do and what value people should put on that resource.

Thanks :) You've raised a really interesting point that I confess I hadn't considered.

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mattwnz

20152 posts

Uber Geek

#691172 25-Sep-2012 14:29

DonGould:
mattwnz:I would have thought that any provider, providing an email service, would have direct access to mail logs.

They do.? However Telecom is not providing the email service, Yahoo is.

Yahoo is not providing the helpdesk service though and obviously not doing anything to review mail logs and give Telecom a heads up that there is a problem that they might want to tell their helpdesk provider about.

Thats what I meant though. Telecom are the front line contact for the email service to their customers. So they should have that access to the mail logs so when a customer calls, they can see the logs, and can see what is happenig. If the customer can't talk to the person who has the logs, then that makes things very difficult, and there is a disconnect. Perhaps people with email problems should be getting redirected to yahoos own support call centre.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#691196 25-Sep-2012 15:19

mattwnz: Thats what I meant though. Telecom are the front line contact for the email service to their customers. So they should have that access to the mail logs so when a customer calls, they can see the logs, and can see what is happenig. If the customer can't talk to the person who has the logs, then that makes things very difficult, and there is a disconnect. Perhaps people with email problems should be getting redirected to yahoos own support call centre.

All that's up to Telecom management to choose from a business point of view really.

It may well be that the cost of all the suggestions you've made, v's the cost of lost customers and the marketing it takes to get them back later (this time with a gmail address) means that for them the choice is just 'tough luck current users - you can't email TelstraClear customers... oh well, what a shame'.

I confess I don't push mail log information at all my users.

My users pay less than $10 a month of a service, which in some cases is less than $1 a month for an email account (assuming that I attribute all their service cost to the mail system).

For less than $1 a month, just how much management do users really expect?

Same has to be said for Telecom customers. If you break this down, how much revenue is allocated to the email account of a residential user?

At $75 a month for 40 gigs of data, with a phone line and a free modem thrown in (fairly much a standard sort of offering currently from many ISPs), how much energy do we really expect them to be putting in?

I would say the effort you're talking about is more a 'managed email solution' and attract a much higher price.

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Oblivian

7297 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#691202 25-Sep-2012 15:29

Ragnor: Telecom outsourced their email to Yahoo 7 in like 2006/2007 and there have been multiple issues with it over the years.

However if you use ISP email changing provider means changing email addresses (which is a pain). Effectively it's a form lock in if you've been using a xtra.co.nz for years you won't want to change.

.

Been on since dial-up turned into 128K ADSL :P a loonngg time. 2 months of changing contact details on forums etc and still going. It's making it hard to remember the ones older than 2 years without keeping all the conformation emails *sigh* Some only come in 2 times a year.

Yyrael

222 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#691287 25-Sep-2012 18:41

Hi all,

Yahoo applied a fix on midday Mon 24th September however subsequent testing has indicated that the email issue is still occurring. We continue to work with Yahoo and Telstra to resolve this issue.

Edit: As per www.telecom.co.nz/whatsnew/broadbandservicestatus/?f=all

mattwnz

20152 posts

Uber Geek

#691290 25-Sep-2012 18:52

DonGould: I would say the effort you're talking about is more a 'managed email solution' and attract a much higher price.

My my case CPanel has mail logs so it is all managed by the customer, so no additional cost. But I know what you mean by it essentially being a $1 per month service. But if people have problems with a provider, they will still call to find out what the problem is, which effectively means that it is a service that is subsidised by other services being sold. Subcontracting out support to lower wage economies though helps keep this cost down.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#691298 25-Sep-2012 19:13

Edit: Sorry, MF is quite right, sorry for derailing the thread.

http://www.telecom.co.nz/whatsnew/broadbandservicestatus/?f=all

It does seem someone at Telecom is now tracking the issue a little more closely and making some effort to use their official support channel to keep users informed.

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