BigPond e-mail slow down fixed - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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BigPond e-mail slow down fixed

By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
October 10, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/BigPond-e-mail-slow-down-fixed/0,130061791,120279523,00.htm

Telstra has revealed the reason for the e-mail delays many of its customers have experienced over the last two weeks.

Some BigPond customers have experienced diminished incoming mail performance, with messages often being delayed by several hours or more. Telstra spokesperson Kerrina Lawrence told ZDNet Australia the problem was with a software upgrade recently implemented by Telstra.

"About two weeks ago we loaded a new software version from our supplier," said Lawrence. "Subsequent to that a software bug was identified."

Around half of Telstra's customers had been transferred to the new system before the bug was detected. The bug "artificially increased the load factors on the platform", which made the software think erroneously that a large amount of traffic was moving through the network.

The software was implemented by a number of international ISPs, according to Lawrence, and the software bug remained undetected despite "rigorous" testing by the supplier beforehand.

Telstra's mail system integrator is believed to be HP.

Lawrence said returning the customers to the previous platform was "not an option" because it would result in a total outage and put the e-mail data at risk. Instead, Telstra opted to "work patiently with the supplier so that e-mail was not lost", according to Lawrence.

When asked whether Telstra would be seeking compensation from its supplier Lawrence replied: "Certainly we will be having an extensive post-incident investigation with the supplier, where we will put forward our concerns."

Lawrence said the problem was fixed yesterday, although some customers experienced additional problems late last night due to an unrelated software issue.