Students who have their Oak e-mail forwarded to outside accounts should expect to encounter some problems receiving Ohio University e-mails this year.
Last year, Communication Network Services began experiencing problems with Microsoft, host of the popular e-mail service Hotmail. The server refused to deliver CNS e-mails from Friday afternoons to Monday mornings, said Sean O'Malley, spokesman for CNS.
According to O'Malley, between 35 and 40 percent of OU students have their e-mail forwarded to outside accounts.
I used to have my Oak account forwarded to my Hotmail address
said senior journalism major Chris Whitney. But then e-mails stopped going through so I stopped forwarding them in early Spring Quarter last year. I was missing important e-mails because they weren't being forwarded through.
Because university e-mails are sent in such large volumes, some outside servers labeled CNS as a spam host and deflected its e-mails. As a result, many students did not receive university e-mails such as grade reports and class schedules.
They won't tell us why they're blocking us said O'Malley, who had no trouble working out similar problems with America Online and Road Runner.
After six weeks of skirting the issue, Microsoft technicians referred CNS to the company's Online Advertising Guide, which outlines its e-mail filtering policies. The guide states: Microsoft makes no representation
warranty or commitment that any message you send to users of the MSN Services will be delivered.
O'Malley said that the continued deflection of CNS e-mails tied up the Oak server and slowed down the entire university e-mail system. Microsoft representatives could not be reached for comment on the situation, but CNS technicians are working with the company to try to smooth out the kinks for this school year.
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Kate Bigam
