comast email issues, who else has them?

Sean Donelan sean at donelan.com
Thu Sep 7 16:19:34 UTC 2006


On Thu, 7 Sep 2006, Christopher L. Morrow wrote:
> Perhaps some of the comcast folks reading might take a better/harder look
> at their customer service tickets and do a 'better' job (note I'm not even
> half of a comcast customer so I'm not sure that there even IS a
> problem...) on this issue?

I am a Comcast customer.  I'm typing this message over a Comcast line, 
although you won't find anything in this message header which shows that.
No X-Originating-IP, no received line, nothing "mandatory" showing where
I am today.

Most ISPs support customer applications because they believe the more 
services customers use from the provider, the less likely customers will 
switch providers, not because its "mandatory" to have those applications.

But there is no requirement to use your ISP's mail server or any other
application from your ISP.  Likewise there is no requirement for a ISP to 
offer any E-mail or Usenet, or FTP, or legal music downloads, or any other 
application to its customers.  There isn't even a requirement for it to 
have any customer service.  Few of the large free Email providers have any 
easy way to talk to any human about mail problems.  So you don't even get 
the satisfaction of yelling at a first level tech about your frustrations.


> In general blaming the first level tech for something isn't going to get
> anyone anywhere near a solution. Perhaps Sean's actually saying: "The
> right tool is to use another provider?" even though Steven's thought is
> that the 'other provider' is in the same boat of clue :(

Mail Service Providers have a wide variety of policies, service levels, 
delivery performance, etc. Searching Google for "free mail provider" 
returns over 500 hits.  Yahoo directory lists over 100 free mail 
providers. There is hardly a "monopoly" or "duopoly" of mail service 
providers, although the big four or five mail providers sometimes try
to throw their weight around.  Yeah, I know he was joking but what
would a "E-Mail Neutrality Law" do to mail providers?

I happen to think the problem is with the bulk mail forwarding services 
that don't pre-filter mail.  But that's just my opinion.  I choose not
to use unfiltered bulk mail forwarding services so I don't have those
problems.




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