Can someone not book VSSNL under MRTP, I am verys ure it can be done. --LL --- E C Vijil vijil@it.iitb.ac.in wrote:
VSNL plays a dirty trick on corp customers
ALLEN J. MENDONCABANGALORE: In what can only be seen as a highly controversial move, VSNL, India's largest ISP, on Thursday blocked all corporate email across the country on its networks, barring e-mails being sent via leased lines.
The method is simple - no mail originating from a VSNL dialup line will be forwarded (and will in effect be bounced) unless it is in the form of user@vsnl.com, user@vsnl.net, user@vsnl.net.in or user@vsnl.in. Try to send a mail such as user@yahoo.com, user@hotmail.com user@yourcompany.com, and your mail will be rejected.
This immediately stops any valid dialup user of VSNL in India from sending out mail using his or her corporate or personal identity.
VSNL director (operations) K.P. Tiwari claimed that this was to "protect" its customers from things such as spam, but this weak cover story didn't last even a few seconds as VSNL openly advertised (in the same e-mail message sent to users) a premium service that allows non-VSNL-domain mailing at a tremendous cost, with fixed limits.
While users can still send non-VSNL domain mail via web-interfaces provided by many services such as indiatimes.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, it prevents people from using industry standard mailers such as Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, etc, which depend on being able to send mail using the SMTP protocol via their ISP's mail relay servers. The effect of this is devastating.
For one, VSNL gave no notice of their intention to do this, giving people no chance at all to arrange for alternatives. Secondly, the motives VSNL offers for this move don't hold water at all.
The real reason appears to be that VSNL is seeking alternate sources of revenue (see http://internet.vsnl.com/vmail/vmail.html), while at the same flexing its monopolistic muscles (while it can).
The results of this move are very likely to be anything VSNL expected.
- VSNL has changed operational rules of its service
in such a way as to in effect stop services to legitimate customers unless they either pay more or change their e-mail address. This is something easily challengeable in a consumer court, and reports are that such moves are already afoot.
- While many customers will leave VSNL for other
ISPs, it is very likely that other ISPs are also going to introduce such limitations, to reap the financial benefits of VSNL's move - probably in the form of lower rates than quoted at http://internet.vsnl.com/vmail/vmail.html - but with the same overall effect on customers. This is similar to all airlines raising their rates when Indian Airlines does.
Exocore Consulting CTO Atul Chitnis had this to say, "ironically, this move affects mostly Microsoft Windows users, as their mail programs do not have the facility to deliver mail directly to the destination (in technical terms - MX-based delivery). Linux and other Unix users are affected only to the extent that they need to reconfigure their system's Mail Transport Agents (MTA) such as sendmail, qmail, postfix, etc, to deliver mail directly rather than via a relay server. Total downtime would be about 10 minutes overall."
Chitnis proved this by sending us an e-mail message using his own domain name (exocore.com) from his notebook that runs Linux, via a VSNL dialup account.
How will the government react to such a flexing of VSNL's monopolistic muscles? That remains to be seen, but it is clear that something needs to be done. India cannot afford to be seen as a "user-unfriendly" place in the current context of globalisation.
-- There are three things I have always loved and never understood -- art, music, and women.
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