[Vision2020] V2020 Problems

[lrr]

Seems like small business growing pains.  For husband and me, the solution was
to go with an ISP in London that's basically a couple of linux-geeky dudes who
know their stuff and have little interest in expanding beyond their means.  I'm
not sure how broadband works, and how different it is in the states, but somehow
they work through BT (the phone company over here), yet still manage to be the
provider of the services and are intimate enough that they are on the ball with
support.  I shall ask my dear one if he has any more specific recommendations.

L.Rosgen

Quoting "Art Deco aka W. Fox" <deco at moscow.com>:

> Ted, et al,
>
> I may be wrong, but below is a possible explanation of the FSR email, V 2020
> problems.
>
> First, it is not just V 2020 but emails from various sources and geographical
> locations that are sometimes delayed up to six days.  Some emails have been
> forever lost.
>
> The servers at FSR have a maximum capacity to handle email.  When that
> capacity
> is exceeded, the emails are cached somewhere else and retrieved, if possible,
> when the system has enough unused capacity to handle them.  Sometimes it is
> not
> possible to retrieve the cached emails on a timely basis or to retrieve them
> at
> all.
>
> Another problem concerns the allegations that certain users emails are being
> read by certain FSR staff.
>
> When I first signed up with FSR, the technical support was very good and one
> seldom had to wait.  Now, it is hard to get connected on call to them;
> leaving a
> message sometimes leads to a long (more than a day) wait.  The last
> experience I
> had was with someone who could not find the problem of why I could not
> connect
> to the mail server and seemed to have no idea of how to investigate the
> problem.
> (I always do the obvious before calling, including a cold boot just in case
> of
> an OS foul-up).  He then said it was a problem with my machine.  A few hours
> later without any more action on my part, the mail connection started working
> again.
>
> I am on a wireless connection.  Sometimes it works very well.  Sometimes it
> is
> pathetically slow, due probably due to FSR's insufficient bandwidth.
>
> Further, FSR is on a number of span-block lists.  This means that certain
> ISPs
> will not accept any emails from anyone using FSR.  I reported the problem
> yesterday after receiving another message saying my email was blocked because
> FSR was considered a spammer.  The problem was acknowledged by FSR with a
> very
> short note saying that they are working on it.  It may be a problem with
> virus
> infected machines of FSR users who are spam robots and/or real spammers.
> This
> explanation would also explain the sluggish response at times.  It is alleged
> that FSR does not have the adequate hardware, software, or technical
> expertise
> to find the spammers.
>
> I like to support local businesses.  However, the problems above are
> beginning
> to lead me to consider finding a more reliable, more secure, and more
> responsive
> ISP connection.
>
> Has anyone else had these problems?  Or different explanations/solutions?
>
> Wayne
>
> Wayne A. Fox