Here's the latest news from me on the subject, extract from an e-mail received from Orange this morning (Thursday 8 July):-
"Thank you for your email.
I would like to appologise once again for the issues that you are still
facing regarding your emails not being received,
The issue is still under investigation and ongoing at the moment,
we currently have no timescale for a fix for the problem, but would like
to assure you that our engineers are working to fix the email
issue as quickly as possible,
I would also like to bring to your attention that the service you pay
for is for Orange to supply a broadband connection and not the email
service, therefor no compensation for loss of email service is
available."
Looks like my plan to obtain compensation for lack of e-mail service is scuppered. So, really, Orange could offer only a Broadband service (supposedly so you can connect to the Internet), but to hell with expecting to be able to send/receive e-mails. The only thing that would stop them from completely adopting that attitude, I would imagine, would be that nobody would ever join them.
We'll have either to play the long waiting game, I fear, or leave Orange altogether. Sorry to be so glum.
C'mon Monsieur/Madame Liquid, we're waiting to hear what you believe this problem to be (at least Stevie and I are! LOL).
Fred.
Work, work, work, prevents me being on here 24/7
If what Orange state "they are getting emails blocked by other providers / servers" then it leads me to believe the way they are sending these emails is somewhat 'old fashioned.'
Spam providers send the same email through multiple ports, trying 1 after another after another until they find an unblocked port. Most commonly, many emails to private servers are sent through port 25.
If Orange are getting blocked by the same methods that spam providers get blocked then they are using an old technique not employed by many providers these days.
Remember, this is based on knowledge of the industry, not factual evidence. If it is true to any degree it can't just be fixed at the click of a finger is what i am stating
C'mon Monsieur/Madame Liquid, we're waiting to hear what you believe this problem to be (at least Stevie and I are! LOL).
Fred.
Work, work, work, prevents me being on here 24/7
If what <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> state "they are getting emails blocked by other providers / servers" then it leads me to believe the way they are sending these emails is somewhat 'old fashioned.'
Spam providers send the same email through multiple ports, trying 1 after another after another until they find an unblocked port. Most commonly, many emails to private servers are sent through port 25.
If <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> are getting blocked by the same methods that spam providers get blocked then they are using an old technique not employed by many providers these days.
Remember, this is based on knowledge of the industry, not factual evidence. If it is true to any degree it can't just be fixed at the click of a finger is what i am stating
Ah, thanks, Liquid, message understood.
Yes, work can be a darned inconvenience, can't it? LOL.
'I would also like to bring to your attention that the service you pay
for is for Orange to supply a broadband connection and not the email
service, therefor no compensation for loss of email service is
available."
Fred, this strikes me as Orange giving themselves 'wriggle' room; whilst it may technically be correct, it is not exactly guaranteed to make their clients happy; without a connection, how precisely does one send email? Also, in that case, why does the heading on my email state: 'outlook express provided by Wanadoo'? Yes, I know perfectly well that OE6 and Wanadoo are obsolete, but hey, out here in the sticks we can't all afford to replace equipment which runs perfectly well (perhaps rethink that last phrase?!) for our requirements! It also shows how long we have been imprisoned; the only reason we are still with them is that it is reasonably inexpensive - and from many hours of research online, all the providers at the lower end of the market - ie cheap - all appear to have pages of similar problems. At least we have this forum!!!
stevieC
'I would also like to bring to your attention that the service you pay
for is for <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> to supply a broadband connection and not the email
service, therefor no compensation for loss of email service is
available."
Fred, this strikes me as <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> giving themselves 'wriggle' room; whilst it may technically be correct, it is not exactly guaranteed to make their clients happy; without a connection, how precisely does one send email? Also, in that case, why does the heading on my email state: 'outlook express provided by Wanadoo'? Yes, I know perfectly well that OE6 and Wanadoo are obsolete, but hey, out here in the sticks we can't all afford to replace equipment which runs perfectly well (perhaps rethink that last phrase?!) for our requirements! It also shows how long we have been imprisoned; the only reason we are still with them is that it is reasonably inexpensive - and from many hours of research online, all the providers at the lower end of the market - ie cheap - all appear to have pages of similar problems. At least we have this forum!!!
stevieC
Agree with everything you say, Stevie. Yes, customers of other providers must also have their share of problems - but our forum here is second to none!
Like you, I find the cost of our broadband service very affordable, and in fact am seriously thinking of switching to Orange for my line rental (when my Tesco contract expires in five months' time), despite the present (hopefully temporary) irritating problems. Another good thing that Orange has going for it is the Livebox - handy to telephone friends overseas at no cost. Can't be bad, can it?
Getting back to our lost-e-mail problems, do you reckon we could take our case to the European Court of Human Rights? (the right to have unimpeded access to e-mailing) - perhaps we could register as a persecuted minority.
Joking aside, it seems that patience must be our continuing watchword, don't you think? I doubt that Orange will want it to be generally known that they are failing to provide us with facilites expected of a broadband connection, do you? Bad publicity for them.
Honesty within companies these days would be a fine thing.
From my experience, a lot has to do with the type of personnel these telecommunication providers employ. In order for them to keep the cost of the service low they must also be able to maintain the cost of employees to help the general public.
Just as a minor example, if Orange were to let's say have 10,000 staff across broadband only (remembering that mobile is a seperate service) and these staff are paid £20,000, that is £200,000,000 just for staff (we are ignoring top executives and managers here). If Orange have 1.5 million broadband customers paying on average let's say £35 a month just for the basic cost (no call charges included) that is £52,500,000 a month or £630,000,000 per annum. This leaves a difference of (or profit) of £430,000,000. This may look like an awful lot of money but now start to take away from this the cost of paying for BT engineers, the cost of renting equipment from BT or paying an LLU supplier, the cost of installing LLU terminals into echanges, refunds to customers, paying top executives and seniour staff, the cost of third party call centres or independant contracters, the liveboxes and other routers, the delivery companies, call centre equipment, trainers, VOIP servers etc. you soon start to see this 'profit' reduce drastically.
Orange UK PLC is a UK company and yes it may be owned by France Telecommunications and yes it may have mobile too, but every area of Orange must make a profit otherwise i'm sure the people in power in Paris will ask questions as to why the expenditure outweighs income, hense why you will have accounts managers and finance team. You will suddenly start to see why when OFCOM imposes fines on companies that these companies do actually take notice.
However, a company must look at the what it costs to implement new services or up date existing ones. I dread to think how much telecommunication providers have to pay to have their call centre systems developed, not to mention the contracts they agree with BT for the likes of BT systems like eCo Siebel, Wholesale, Tags, CMC etc.
If Orange have a genuine problem with their email service to the degree it appears by the complaints here then they will be doing their best to have these services updated or looked into. You are a paying customer receiving this email service as part of your package but no company can fix major issues like that in 24 hours or a week, it requires time and the involvement of major companies, most likely Cable & Wireless which won't be an easy thing.
I empathise with Orange customers but i also empathise with the ISP's as well because their lives are no easier than your own, they all rely on a supplier above them for all of their services and unfortunately the suppliers are not in abundant supply so most ISP's have to make the choice of paying a supplier directly or investing millions, prehaps even billions to develop the networks and services themselves. If Orange UK PLC doesn't have the profit margins to use to develop these systems then they would have to get money from France Telecom and if they say no how do you expect them to be able to invest other than raise costs to customers?
I also dread to think the loss Orange make having to pay BT for home phone costs or when a customer leaves Orange without migrating to another ADSL provider. I think they charge £25.85 or £24.61 these days, i feel so sorry for Orange in that respect.
Oh and on a sidenote, there is a cheap, easy and trouble free way to resolve the problem and any future ones with email; don't use an ISP email service, use an email provider that isn't ISP dependant, maybe like Google, Hotmail or Yahoo, i don't think in 14 years or so i have ever even read or used an email service from my ISP's
France Telecom actually own and support Oranges email platform so most issues are in their hands, leaving Orange powerless to do anything but push for a fix.
yes, all the above read and understood. However, I feel that all of Orange customers who are currently having difficulty - through, I may add, no fault of our own - and who are currently paying for the service, would be more inclined towards sympathy for their technical issues if we were not treated like morons.
It is endlessly frustrating to receive no concrete information beyond a 'script' should one have the temerity to ring the 'helpline'; endless promises of 'call-backs' from employees who don't; variations of letters from head-office duly copied to this forum by recipients like FredtheOstrich and myself - all of which state 'yes repeat no'.
In situations such as this, where Orange themselves are obviously aware of the problem, but are apparently helpless to do much according to 'liquid's' analysis, they should have both the courtesy and honesty towards their client-base to publicise the problem/solution. It would be very helpful if there was a notice on their own 'help' pages stating that there is currently a problem with email in certain areas/some brief details of cause/some sensible brief details of progress of proposed solution/updated say once a week.
I repeat, they are making a rod for their own backs by telling us nothing useful; we start to question the integrity of management when employees don't call back - this is unforgivable - and when we are left in what appears to be an endlessly repeating loop to nowhere.
Meanwhile the email still don't work.
Yes, Fred, I think we should march on the European parliament with banners and picket the place until our rights to efficient and fuctioning email are enshrined in the declaration of human rights!!!
And yes, I did open a hotmail account, that also had difficulties immediately which their team took 3 x days to sort out (their filters had decided all my communications were spam and dealt with them accordingly) so although it has proved useful, I was disappointed. I also find the stuff on the landing page very irritating - eg: I don't want to enter my birthdate so that everyone on my contact list will be notified and send me greetings 'on the day' etc etc, - at least I can open OE without having laboriously to enter yet another damned password, and I am not faced with a page of stuff I really don't care about!!! Sorry, rant over.
yes, all the above read and understood. However, I feel that all of <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> customers who are currently having difficulty - through, I may add, no fault of our own - and who are currently paying for the service, would be more inclined towards sympathy for their technical issues if we were not treated like morons....
...It would be very helpful if there was a notice on their own 'help' pages stating that there is currently a problem with email in certain areas/some brief details of cause/some sensible brief details of progress of proposed solution/updated say once a week....
...stevieC
Again, Stevie, I agree with you on this, but can see, Liquid, where you're coming from. You've put forward some very good reasoning for the problems that Orange might be encountering.
However, as Stevie has pointed out, Orange staff should at least advise us (and keep us advised on a regular basis, yes, maybe once a week) of any e-mailing problems their customers might be experiencing or be likely to experience. Surely courtesy alone dictates this, don't you think?
In one of my e-mails to Orange about this blasted problem, I stated this: "...It would have been nice if Orange had contacted all of its customers via e-mail to advise them of the problem, instead of awaiting many complaints to arrive on their doorstep....", but not one response came to me from them concerning this, only how they were still working on the problem, and that "...I would also like to bring to your attention that the service you pay for is for Orange to supply a broadband connection and not the email service, therefor no compensation for loss of email service is available..."
It's this lack of concern of Orange for their customers' feelings that really irritates me, probably more so than the e-mailing problem itself. If, right from the start, they'd said something like, "OK, sorry, lads and lasses, we're have a really tricky problem here, please bear with us, and we'll keep you updated", then I think any reasonable person would have then exhibited patience, but no, they can't even do that, can they?
Are you listening/watching, Orange? Politeness costs nothing, except, in this case, getting someone to send a blanket e-mail to all customers, explaining the problem you're encountering.
Fred, there is a lot of storage available in the hotmail account, and I see no reason why you should not be able to download emails to your own computer if you wish; i've simply taken to remaining logged into it for the time that I am online
stevieC
Thanks for this earlier advice, Stevie, also to you, Liquid, for the same.
I realised a little later that, as I have a Yahoo Messenger account, I could likely set up a Yahoo e-mail one also, which is what I've done, and very easily too!
For anyone reading this who wants to have e-mails coming into Outlook Express or Outlook, etc., here's one way of accomplishing that. Send your e-mail to your intended recipient(s) via Yahoo or Hotmail webmail in the usual manner, but also send a copy to your own Orange/Wanadoo/Freeserve addy (I place mine in the "cc:" field). Ask your friends, when they reply, to make sure they use the "Reply to ALL" button. This procedure will ensure copies of e-mails either way will end up in your computer's resident Inbox. Magic!
Thanks again, Stevie, and thanks again, Liquid. A good workaround fix.
Totally agree with you Fred and Steve that honesty and concern cost nothing and should be used by any and all Orange employees.
However, if i were top brass i would be reluctant for my staff to disclose rash 'opinions' of a problem straight away. Main reason for this is the way the market works with impressions. All it would take is one annoyed customer who either mis-reads or doesn't care one bit for excuses and shoots their mouth off on a forum like this over something trival and the reports will spread like a virus.
Orange have their internal failings as do all ISP's, just appears that sometimes they shoot themselves in the foot as Orange's problems exist with the customer service satisfaction levels which unfortunately for them is the first point of contact for a customer, thus poor impression to begin with.
It could be easily rectified but it will take time to adapt, let's just hope for those like Fred, sooner rather than later.
yes, liquid, but this problem appears to have been going on for a very long time; if, as we assume, top brass are aware of it, then they must surely be aware that we are already 'annoyed' and 'shooting our mouths off' on this forum - and no doubt reports have already spread. I find it difficult to believe that the engineers whom they use are less qualified than other providers, so surely they must understand the problem.
Therefore would it not be good PR to post a 'basic' explanation and update on progress, which would to an extent mollify furious and frustrated users such as Fred and myself. The impressions gained from this would also spread like a virus.
I reiterate, the only reason we are still using them, is because of inertia and because at this end of the market - ie cheap - I am assuming they are all as bad as each other
I had another call from the Orange Executive Office yesterday. So at least this guy is keeping to his promise to keep me informed.
He has been told that as of 13 July the majority of problems had now been resolved. He couldn't give 100% assurance that the service is now totally reliable and that there may be soem obscurer domains still getting blocked. Hotmail was apparently one of the biggest problem domains.
He has asked me to try the domains I know I was having problems with and to let him know if I have continued problems. I would therefore urge you guys to do the same and bombard the Orange CEO with complaints if you are still suffering. But, to give them a chance also include domain names that are being blocked, possibly also send them the full email header and ip address being sent from.
I also asked if they were going to now put a Known Service Problems button on their website. He said it is one thing they are pursuing from the Exec Office. Don't hold your breath.
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