On Tue, 20 Sep 2005, Bellwether wrote: > On 9/20/05 1:02 PM, Larry Stone wrote: > > > Given that, since Entoruage 2001 hasn't changed, the only possible answers > > is their is a network connectivity issue or the POP3 and SMTP server > > software at Earthlink's end has been broken and is no longer fully > > standards compliant. > > Not exactly. Entourage 2001 hasn't changed on her machine, true, but OS 9 is > no longer supported at her ISP! That doesn't mean that anything at Earthlink > is broken or that it isn't standards compliant -- it's just not working with > an unsupported OS!
What OS she's running really isn't relevant. It is not up to the ISP to support an operating system - that's Apple's job. It's the ISP to support the network and application protocols that are being used. The ISP should not care what OS she's using. All "support" should mean in this case is that the ISP will help you with configuration settings. As for actually using a particuar operating system, you either comply with the standards or you don't. Earthlink is certainly free to not comply with standards but then they better not claim they're standards compliant. For me, if an ISP is not standards compliant, they're disqualified for my business. > While your explanation in your final paragraph sounds plausible at first, > please remember that this phenomenon is NOT just with Earthlink. I have > experienced it personally with AOL, core.com, and Charter Pipeline as well, > and have read of it at macnn and macfixit message boards with other ISPs. > > And in each case, upgrading to OS X has fixed the connectivity issues. Face > it: ISPs cannot continue to support OSes that are no longer current or > supported by their own manufacturers. I'd prefer that your final sentence say "ISPs cannot be bothered to actually comply with standards so they try to restrict their customers to a narrow set of software that they've found works with their servers" > You can't blame OS problems on standards compliance. By your reasoning, any > OS released since RFC1939 (1996) should work, right? That would include some > iterations of System 7 and all of OS 8, too. It's not an OS problem. It used to work and nothing has changed on her end (sorry, I've forgotten who the OP was). Therefore, it's not her problem. If a standards client client won't work with a given server, then the server is the problem, not the OS that client happens to be installed on. Unfortunately, the real solution for the OP, one that will work far longer than chasing Earthlink's lack of standards compliance, is to switch to a standards compliant ISP. Edit: IIRC, Earthlink uses PPPoE for DSL (I think the OP said she was on DSL). I remember when I was briefly forced to use a PPPoE DSL connection that I had to tweak a setting in my DSL NAT router to avoid having PPPoE munch some bytes. Unfortunately, I don't think I have that information anymore but I'd be curious if the OP has a NAT router (e.g. one of those usually four port routers (with or without wireless) that lets you share the DSL across multiple computers) and for how long. -- Larry Stone [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
