The source of the problem, the second email blunder for BigPond in as many days, is as yet unknown but is affecting some customers nationally, according to the telco giant.
However, broadband user Web site www.whirlpool.net.au claims the problem has been confirmed as an Australia-wide outgoing SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) email server outage. These servers act as a relay between a user's outbox and the recipient's inbox.
Telstra representative Stuart Gray told ZDNet Australia that today's outage is -a new problem, we don't know if it's related to yesterday's".
Telstra admitted that it is still in the dark as to what the root cause of yesterday's problem was, which saw a -partial failure" of a mail server affect all BigPond customers with usernames beginning with C and T. These customers were unable to access the email functionality of their BigPond accounts for the majority of the day - with the 10am glitch rectified at about 7.30pm.
The industry heavyweight has denied that it has lost a whole day's worth of customer emails on the back of yesterday's dilemma, saying that some customers would be experiencing a "delay" in receiving backlogged email as a result of their mail boxes becoming corrupted on the back of yesterday's glitch.
"Corrupted mail boxes have deferred sending stored emails," Gray said, adding that technicians were working on rebuilding the corrupted mail boxes which would result in individuals progressively getting emails sent through. "It's not a widespread issue," Gray said. Unsure about how long it would take to clear the backlog of emails, Gray said: "I don't expect it to be too long...within a day, but i can't give a definitive answer."
Last week Telstra BigPond customers suffered intermittent email problems for most of the day Tuesday. It was identified as the failure of a software processing package.
I am starting to think Telstra has employed the 3 stooges to take care of their networks.
I can just see it now , OH NO THE MAIL SERVER IS DOWN , SmaCK , BiNG ....SLaP , PoKE PoKe..WOooPPSSsSSie.