I have, in Delhi, a bol.net.in dial-up account. By our not too good standards, performance is average; but the help, which I rarely need, is pretty much non-existent. For over three months, I have had a problem with this account. I mark copies of many messages from my bol account to my netscape.net account. For each, in a couple of days I get a delay report; and eventually the message is returned as undeliverable. The problem, I learnt on the Netscape site, has to do with reverse DNS look-up. I forwarded several bounced messages to MTNL. There was not even an acknowledgment. One day, though, a man who did not want to give his name (’’Why do you want to know?’’ he asked rudely, before saying that he was Satya Prakash Sharma, which may or may not have been true) telephoned and said that the problem had been fixed. He asked me to send a test message and see if it bounced back. Evidently he believed that it would bounce back immediately. I asked if he had read any of the bounced messages I had forwarded. He said that he had. He was either lying or else is wholly devoid of the power of comprehending even the most elementary things. Each message had been bounced back not immediately but after some days. The number of attempts was recorded, as were the times at which they were made. Since then, that is, for two months now, I have been forwarding similar bounced messages to edd@bol.net.in, who is some sort of Bada Sahab and no doubt sits in a comfortable chair, and to feedback@bol.net.in: but there has been no response -- and of course the problem remains. The netscape.net account does not do this to messages from other accounts, neither any of my own nor those of several other people.
Addition, 9 Jan 06. The reverse DNS look-up problem with Netscape and some other addresses continues: it’s 9 or 10 months now. The Executive Director does not respond, no doubt because his mailbox is full and bounces my messages. Not once have I connected to the help telephones. When I wrote to the minister, that worthy’s secretary informed me that my message had been sent on to the very same Executive Director.
Now I am told, first, that messages not just to Netscape/AOL but to nearly ALL addresses are delayed -- and, a day later, that they could not be delivered. The error reports again concern DNS. These jokers clearly do not know the first thing about configuring their servers. And they are not a service, not by any means.