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From...
How to avoid the threat of e-mail outages
September
1, 1998
Web posted at: 12:20 PM EDT
by Joe Mullich
(IDG) -- It seems that each week another e-mail service goes down. Servers at AOL, MSN, and the Web-based mail services will continue to see outages on occasion, "no matter what anyone tells you," says Eric Zines, a Dallas-based telecommunications consultant.
Zines says the problem is due to a combination of factors: spam hitting the servers, hackers trying to get into them, and the fact that no computer system is completely reliable.
So what can you do to remain in touch?
First, Zines suggests you reconsider the use of these services for important business e-mail that cannot be delayed. You should at least have a free backup e-mail account, such as that offered by Juno Online Services. A backup account will let you send and receive new messages during outages, even if e-mail sent to your primary provider is trapped by a downed server.
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Of course, if your online connection is also down, you're out of luck. Brian Schwartz, a public relations professional in Herndon, Virginia, is experimenting with an ad-supported free service called CoolMail from Planetary Motion that will access POP3 mail and then read it back over the phone.
"I think it has a lot of potential but it is still an immature product," he says.
Michael Kaminer Public Relations, a firm in New York, had its T-1 line go out recently when Bell Atlantic had a giant power failure. The solution? The firm keeps a couple of active modem phone lines available in case the T-1 is dead.
"We only use those lines in emergencies; they're idle most of the time," says Kaminer. "When a T-1 problem arises, we simply use a dial-up connection to get to our ISP and retrieve e-mail."