Plusnet - elevating stupidity to an art form

[#1]

Just over a week ago I raised a support issue with Plusnet. I have a static IP which I use to run my own email server. I discovered that they had informed Spamhaus that the IP address range in which my IP sits is dynamic, instead of static. Therefore my IP was on a Spamhaus Zen blocklist and some of my outgoing emails were refused. This is a problem that that occurred before, a year ago, and was corrected by Plusnet at that time.

The person with whom I discussed the issue suggested changing my static IP. I pointed out that this would not be helpful, not least because other customers would likely be facing the same issue and be unaware of it. I was told that the issue would be passed to the networks team and I should expect a reply within 2 days.

Eight days later, with no response, I added a note to the ticket to the effect that I was still awaiting a reply.

A few hours later, I noticed that I could no longer connect to my email. As luck would have it, I was able to get home and discover that, lo and behold, I had a new IP address. I then had to update the DNS settings for my domain to point to the new address. Having done so, the changes finally propagated such that I received an email from Plusnet saying that they'd changed my IP address, and what the new address was! Such stupidity is beyond belief.  How on earth did you expect your email to get to my domain when the domain points to what is now the wrong address? It's damned lucky that I spotted a problem and was able to fix it, at least in part.

As it is, I am still left in the situation where the reverse DNS lookup on my new IP points to the wrong domain, and this will probably cause some emails to be refused. I have called back the support team and explained that I want my old IP address back, with the correct reverse DNS. I'm not holding my breath for the fix.

This whole fiasco does not make me feel very proud to be a Yorkshireman.

[#2]

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): Topic moved to a more appropriate board.

[#3]

Hello moderator,

This post has absolutely nothing to do with Plusnet email,. It has everything to do with static IP addresses on the fibre service because I don't use the Plusnet email service .

[#4]

@oldblokeh blame me for the move . I asked the mods to move it as I thought you'd get better visibility here rather than it get lost in amongst all the other Fibre posts

[#5]

@oldblokeh

Your old IP address being on the Spamhaus Policy Block List is not unreasonable because it is in a dynamic range. In your case Plusnet always assign you the same IP, making it effectively static.

You could have used the tool provided on the Spamhaus site to declare it as a mail sender which should have fixed the problem. No need to ask Plusnet to do that.

For fixing the present situation is it acceptable for rDNS of your new IP to be changed to your desired value? It might be easier to get Plusnet to do that rather than trying to get your old IP back.

[#6]

@spraxyt

So why did Plusnet backpedal on it being dynamic when the same issue occurred last year? Why have owners of these static IPs not been notified of the change? And why was my IP address changed when I specifically told the support technician that this would not be helpful?

[#7]

I think there was some confusion about what was happening last year. I suppose affected IPs are physically dynamic but logically static, so which description applies depends on perspective. My static IP is on the PBL but I send mail through the Plusnet relays so that's fine.

Sorry but Plusnet staff will have to answer your other questions.