Email wipeout hits Optus users

Optus has admitted that it has lost some emails belonging to several thousand of its dial-up Internet subscribers following a system glitch over the long weekend.

-On Monday October 1 we identified a system fault that affected customer mailboxes with usernames A through to C, which meant some customers may have lost some content from their mailboxes," an Optus spokesperson told ZDNet Australia. -That fault has now been restored and all is well."

Optus reiterated that the system flaw, which it believes was live for -several hours", means that some emails may be irretrievable.

The service provider, allowing itself a buffer period of between late afternoon Sunday and 1pm Monday, is advising customers who were expecting emails during this timeframe to have them resent.

-We're recommending if people were expecting special mail to go to the sender and ask it to be resent," the spokesperson said.

With a headcount of around 420,000 subscribers to its dial-up service OptusNet, the spokesperson said she -couldn't estimate" how many emails had gone astray, but said that -several thousand" users would have been affected by the email loss.

The email loss, a first of its kind for Optus according to its spokesperson, follows hot on the heels of BigPond problems, which are still affecting customers with usernames starting with P and F.

Telstra also suffered a -partial failure" of a mail server a month ago, which affected BigPond customers with user names beginning with C and T, and also suffered two similar problems during the past week in which customers with user names beginning with P and F were also left stranded.

However, unlike Optus, the telco heavyweight did not completely lose user email, with customers simply experiencing a "delay" in receiving backlogged email, Telstra advised at the time.

Optus said it was -checking all systems to make ensure there were no other faults".

Dingo Blue, which uses the OptusNet network says it was not affected by the email destruction.

Advertisement

Talkback 0 comments

Latest Videos

Sponsored content

Power Centre - Content from our premier sponsors

Blogs

  • Phil Dobbie Is wholesale-only backhaul just a pipedream?
    The potential acquisition of Pipe Networks by SP Telemedia has raised the question about whether vertically integrated backhaul providers will mean higher wholesale prices for ISP customers.
  • Array Get extensions going in Firefox, redux
    Previously on Null Pointer we looked at getting extensions working in Firefox betas, and that was great until the fine folks at Firefox changed their minds.
  • Array How reliable is IP telephony?
    Have you ever heard a weird kind of hissing, crackling or popping noise when calling someone on an IP telephony line? How rare is the phenomenon these days?
  • More blogs »

Tags

Back to top

Featured