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I have been using the Yahoo! Mail Service for several years now. I like it since I can maintain a single e-mail address, even though I move every few years. 

A few weeks ago, the POP service simply stopped working. I contacted iCable [Communications] but there was no response. I contacted Yahoo! They gave instructions on how to 'enable bandwidth throttling', but I believe these instructions were not for me but for my internet service provider (iCable). This seems obviously  to be a problem for the ISP as I have taken my PC to a friend's home and the POP service works fine with other ISPs. 

The same problem happens with Outlook, Outlook Express, and even Entourage on the Mac. The problem occurs on both Windows XP and Mac OS X. My guess is that everyone is having problems with iCable.

Do you have any solutions? (I am tied to iCable for the next 10 months, unless I want to pay a high exit fee.)


Tom Jaros, Wan Chai


The Yahoo! response about 'bandwidth throttling' is rather odd. It seems to me that you are right in believing that they think you are an ISP. Usually, bandwidth throttling is something the ISP would do to limit bandwidth to its customers. Those who pay more, get more.

When an ISP offers you a deal on higher bandwidth, it is simply freeing up a little more bandwidth for you. I am not quite certain how they got the wrong end of the stick on that one.

Be that as it may, I did send your question to Garmen Chan,  external affairs vice-president at iCable Communications. Here is her response: 

'Since the e-mail services provided by Yahoo! are only general internet e-mail services, we do not impose any restriction on the access by our broadband customers. In fact, it is the first time we have learnt about this kind of problem. 

'We suspect that it may be caused by improper settings of the e-mail software by the user. However, in the absence of the complainant's account information, we are not able to find out more details of the problem and conduct further investigations.

'We therefore invite the complainant to contact our service operations manager, Anthony Mak, at 2112?8805 or let us have his contact number so that we can make a detailed diagnosis of his case.' 

It is odd that you would be able to use the POP account at a friend's house but not with iCable. Obviously, you would do well to contact Mr Mak. Some local ISPs have in the past fooled around with blocking some ports in an attempt to stop spam. It was not very successful. 

Until you speak to Mr Mak, you will not know exactly what is going on here. You can tell us the results of your conversation, however.

Questions to Tech Talk will not be answered personally. E-mail Danyll Wills at tech.talk@scmp.com.




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