Tiscali email problems

There is no relevant service status information available on the Tiscali
webpage but observed problems and a call to the Tiscali premium rate support
line confirms the following:

Email sent to Tiscali email accounts have a high chance of being
undeliverable - either undeliverable errors or entry in to a blackhole.

There is, apparently, a major technical problem consequent upon upgrade
work. The problem is not expected to be fixed until 14 October.

I wondered why I was receiving no spam at all - and very few genuine emails.

It is scandalous. Not only is there no public facing status information on
their webpage but this major outage is not going to be fixed for days.

On 09/10/2010 21:52, Gareth wrote:
> There is no relevant service status information available on the Tiscali
> webpage but observed problems and a call to the Tiscali premium rate
> support line confirms the following:
>
> Email sent to Tiscali email accounts have a high chance of being
> undeliverable - either undeliverable errors or entry in to a blackhole.
>
> There is, apparently, a major technical problem consequent upon upgrade
> work. The problem is not expected to be fixed until 14 October.
>
> I wondered why I was receiving no spam at all - and very few genuine
> emails.
>
> It is scandalous. Not only is there no public facing status information
> on their webpage but this major outage is not going to be fixed for days.

Probably yet another glitch discovered by Craphone Whorehouse subsequent
to their buyout of Tiscali?
The recent BBC Watchdog programme highlighted a major problem with
regard to the continued billing of customers who had switched away from
Tiscali to other ISPs and yet were still being chased for payments by CW.
The CW rep who appeared on the programme said that the problem was that
Tiscali's systems were based in Sicily (Mafia HQ!) and that they were
having great difficulty sorting things out, even though they knew there
was a problem.
I'm betting that the directors of CW are wishing they never made the
decision to buy Tiscali!

If it were me, I'd migrate somewhere else.
But there again, if you did, they'd probably continue to bill you and
then send in the debt collectors...
:-(

George

"bod43" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:bdd99d3d-cb21-4908-8ef7-(E-Mail Removed)...
> On 9 Oct, 22:08, George Weston <geowes...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
>> On 09/10/2010 21:52, Gareth wrote:
>
>> > Email sent to Tiscali email accounts have a high chance of being
>> > undeliverable - either undeliverable errors or entry in to a blackhole.
>
> I believe that Vodafone apparently simply dumped (well
> they did let the users know in advance) all vodafone.net
> email accounts recently. No subsequent mail forwarding
> or anything.
>
> Using your ISP for mail is in my view not a good plan.
> The ideal is to have you own domain and then you can
> always switch to any mail provider of your choice
> if one particular supplier has problems.

I agree but this is not easy for the average user to set up.

What is shocking about this current problem with Tiscali is that, for the
most part, their technical support service in India are unaware of it. It
must be impacting thousands of people and emails are simply being lost
(occasionally returned as underliverable).

On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:51:53 +0100, "Gareth"
<hotmail.com@dgareth_remove.com> wrote:

>What is shocking about this current problem with Tiscali is that, for the
>most part, their technical support service in India are unaware of it. It
>must be impacting thousands of people and emails are simply being lost
>(occasionally returned as underliverable).

Looking up the MX record for tiscali.co.uk gives:

tiscali.co.uk. 900 IN MX 10 mxgb1.opaltelecom.net.

That's it. One record; no backup. I would expect all ISPs to
have a minimum of two servers listed.

As a side issue, what is the connection between Tiscali and
Opal? Does one own the other? Or is it a matter of out-sourcing?
--
Roger

On 10/10/2010 09:51, Roger wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:51:53 +0100, "Gareth"
> <hotmail.com@dgareth_remove.com> wrote:
>
>> What is shocking about this current problem with Tiscali is that, for the
>> most part, their technical support service in India are unaware of it. It
>> must be impacting thousands of people and emails are simply being lost
>> (occasionally returned as underliverable).
>
> Looking up the MX record for tiscali.co.uk gives:
>
> tiscali.co.uk. 900 IN MX 10 mxgb1.opaltelecom.net.
>
> That's it. One record; no backup. I would expect all ISPs to
> have a minimum of two servers listed.
>
> As a side issue, what is the connection between Tiscali and
> Opal? Does one own the other? Or is it a matter of out-sourcing?

from Opal's website:
"We are the dedicated business to business division of the TalkTalk Group"
Talk Talk is owned by Craphone Whorehouse, who also bought out the UK
operations of Tiscali and are trying - pretty unsuccessfully, it would
seem - to fully integrate their ex-Tiscali customers into the Talk Talk
network.

On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 13:10:05 +0100, George Weston
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On 10/10/2010 09:51, Roger wrote:
>> On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:51:53 +0100, "Gareth"
>> <hotmail.com@dgareth_remove.com> wrote:
>>
>> As a side issue, what is the connection between Tiscali and
>> Opal? Does one own the other? Or is it a matter of out-sourcing?
>
>from Opal's website:
>"We are the dedicated business to business division of the TalkTalk Group"
>Talk Talk is owned by Craphone Whorehouse, who also bought out the UK
>operations of Tiscali and are trying - pretty unsuccessfully, it would
>seem - to fully integrate their ex-Tiscali customers into the Talk Talk
>network.

Thank you for that. But I'm not sure how to pronounce
"Craphone"; Cra-phone seems daft so perhaps it's Crap-hone.
Perhaps you should add more pee!

Whilst on the subject of pronunciation I can't decide between
Travel-odge or Trave-lodge. Oh! what the 'ell.
--
Roger

"Roger" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:51:53 +0100, "Gareth"
> <hotmail.com@dgareth_remove.com> wrote:
>
>>What is shocking about this current problem with Tiscali is that, for the
>>most part, their technical support service in India are unaware of it. It
>>must be impacting thousands of people and emails are simply being lost
>>(occasionally returned as underliverable).
>
> Looking up the MX record for tiscali.co.uk gives:
>
> tiscali.co.uk. 900 IN MX 10 mxgb1.opaltelecom.net.
>
> That's it. One record; no backup. I would expect all ISPs to
> have a minimum of two servers listed.

Wow. That's crazy. Surely not? Just one server?! That would explain why mail
is underliverable/not sent/not received/lost/bounced.

But it doesn't explain why the useless company is unable to provide
intelligent advice and support - even through a premium rate telephone
number.

On 11/10/2010 19:23, Gareth wrote:
>
>
> "Roger" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:51:53 +0100, "Gareth"
>> <hotmail.com@dgareth_remove.com> wrote:
>>
>>> What is shocking about this current problem with Tiscali is that, for
>>> the
>>> most part, their technical support service in India are unaware of
>>> it. It
>>> must be impacting thousands of people and emails are simply being lost
>>> (occasionally returned as underliverable).
>>
>> Looking up the MX record for tiscali.co.uk gives:
>>
>> tiscali.co.uk. 900 IN MX 10 mxgb1.opaltelecom.net.
>>
>> That's it. One record; no backup. I would expect all ISPs to
>> have a minimum of two servers listed.
>
> Wow. That's crazy. Surely not? Just one server?! That would explain why
> mail is underliverable/not sent/not received/lost/bounced.
>
> But it doesn't explain why the useless company is unable to provide
> intelligent advice and support - even through a premium rate telephone
> number.

Maybe because they're cheap as chips?
The Ryanair of ISPs?
;-)

George

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, George Weston
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes

>Maybe because they're cheap as chips?
>The Ryanair of ISPs?

) Not an unfair comment, but like Ryanair, it mostly works.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On 12/10/2010 03:06, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
> In article<(E-Mail Removed)>, George Weston
> <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>
>> Maybe because they're cheap as chips?
>> The Ryanair of ISPs?
>
> ) Not an unfair comment, but like Ryanair, it mostly works.
>
And you pay for the bits that should be all in the price - like calling
support...