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RFN Support Limited E-mail / Text Alert Delivery Issue MID OCTOBER 2014: If you are an RFN e-mail and/or mobile text subscriber, you may have noticed a significant decrease in the frequency of alerts delivered to you since mid October 2014 up to the present time. RFN can still send alerts but it's limited per day so greater care has to be taken to decide when to use that window for more important info to be delivered. This has happened because RFN's subscriber base has grown and reached a number that has triggered its e-mail service providers' server limitations of message volume and frequency of delivery. In other words, e-mail service providers have informed RFN's provider that it is being limited to sending less messages or completely blocked for a short period of time between full mailouts because of sending too many messages, too often which is interpreted by all the big e-mail service providers' servers as a possible spammer. Additionally, if you're a current sub and have wondered where all the RFN logo graphics and useful RFN tool links went in the e-mail alerts and the links in the text alerts, they had to be removed because of very aggressive third party spam filter companies' servers, used by most of the service providers, that were blocking & not delivering RFN's alert messages because they appeared as spam-like characteristics. When contacted about this, they all play the blame game about the other provider and don't seem to care that subscribers have chosen to receive RFN's messages because a machine with preset criteria is making the decision and not a person. This is very frustrating for RFN and for its subscribers because they can't be alerted to new content when it has been posted. So, the temporary workaround until this issue resolved is for current & new subscribers to subscribe to RFN's Facebook and/or Twitter page(s) as a notification platform so you can at least know when new content has been posted on RFN's main PC and mobile pages. That's not as fast as text message or e-mail alerts but it's better than nothing. And yes, the number of RFN's Facebook & Twitter followers is LOW because up until now they have only been used as backup for situations just like this. So, those numbers are NOT indicative of RFN's true subscriber base which is much larger and is why RFN is having this problem. Of course, if you're new, you can still submit your e-mail and/or mobile number for text alerts so you will be in the loop when this delay is fixed. Thanks for your understanding and patience. Hopefully, this can be resolved soon. Pre-paid Service Alert Delivery Issue If you use a pre-paid mobile service and randomly experience not getting RFN mobile alerts delivered to your phone, the following info describes the cause of the issue. Pre-paid carriers are actually serviced by Verizon, At&t & sometimes more carriers. This process is behind the scenes & is transparent to the actual wireless user but greatly affects how services like RFN deliver messages to pre-paid users on the backend. Whether it's random or each time a pre-paid user reloads their account with new minutes, that phone's service may stay assigned to the last carrier that it was using before the reload or it may be re-assigned to the another carrier. So, as a pre-paid user, if your phone was last known to be associated with At&t in RFN's mobile alert group then you reloaded your account or it randomly changed & it was then re-assigned to Verizon, you would not receive RFN mobile alerts until you reloaded again and it switched back to At&t, which could be instant or take a while because it's random. As RFN's mobile pre-paid subscriber base has grown, this has become a real task to keep up with all the carrier re-assignment updates at any given time on RFN's side. Unfortunately, because of the unlimited & random carrier re-assigments for alot of pre-paid RFN subscribers, this is the reason that RFN no longer supports pre-paid users until this process is automated. Mobile Video Outage As of the middle of November 2011, there are only a few video selections available on RFN's MOBILE edition due to an external server issue beyond RFN's control. However, ALL video selections area available on the PC edition. Check back periodically for updates as to when RFN mobile video will be restored. Viewing RFN on Phones & Tablets If you are accessing RFN while using a mobile tablet such as, but not limited to, the new Motorola Xoom or iPad 1 or 2, please use the RFN Mobile edition RealFastNews.MOBi to view RFN video and text content because some features on the PC edition do not display properly or may not function at all on the newly released tablet devices. RFN video could take as much as 30 seconds to load & play on the iPad 1 and 2. Content Status All content on RFN has been tested and works properly on the server side. Below are some common issues associated with streaming media when the files don't seem to work properly on the end-user side. Please investigate these basic solutions first to see if they resolve your viewing issues. If they do not, simply contact RFN here along with a description of the problem and RFN will try to get it resolved. Content Delivery All RFN video selections are high definition video files designed to be viewed at full screen resolution if desired. Some files can be large and may take up to 30 seconds to buffer, load and then play but it is worth the wait for very clear video. Another possible reason for a delay in playback may be the processor speed on your computer and/or if you have several other programs/operations in use at one time. Closing some or all of these can help speed up the loading and playback time of video files on any website, not just RFN's. Common Issues The RFN PC site is best viewed with Internet Explorer at a screen resolution of 1024x768. If any of the text or images look distored, try verifying that the resolution is set to the recommended setting and/or that the text size (view tab) in Internet Explorer is set to medium. Adjust the text size to make finer adjustments if necessary. The default is the medium setting and should work fine at 1024x768 resolution. - The RFN mobile site's LIVE & On-demand video can be viewed on most recent mobile devices such as Blackberries, iPhones, Droids, HTCs, Motorola & iPad tablets and most other Windows Media compatible mobile devices. Of course you can always view RFN's live and on-demand video on a PC at RealFastNews.com. The PC site and PC video files are best viewed with Internet Explorer usually found on your desktop with the big blue E. If you are a FireFox user and RFN pages won't update/refresh with current content, go to tools > options > advanced > network > clear cache. Thanks for your help and comments. - You must have a broadband (high speed) connection to view RFN video files. If you have a Cable, DSL or T-line connection, then you shouldn't have any issues viewing our video files. Although the pre-load time is only a few seconds for broadband viewers (cable / DSL / T-line), if there is a slight delay of a file's load time, this is because the high speed files are very high quality and have large file sizes. If the video doesn't immediately auto-play after a few seconds, you can simply press the play button and it will play. However, if you do start playback manually, it is possible that the playback will catch up to the download and cause the video to temporarily stop so the download can get ahead of the playback again. So, it is best to let the autoplay execute playback so it will be timed correctly. This process just described is called progressive downloading and is typical for all non-streaming servers, not just RFN's. It simply prevents the viewer from having to wait for the entire file to download before it can be viewed. Media Players - RFN uses Windows Media content because it is the most common multi-media file used for streaming media content. These files can be played with other compatible players such as Quicktime or Real Player, however, for the best and most reliable viewing experience, it is strongly recommended to use Windows Media Player which should be the default player out of the box on your PC. Networks - If you are on an office network and are experiencing issues viewing the video files, make sure that the network allows streaming media content to be viewed. Sometimes, network administrators create a firewall or remove media players from the network for security reasons. This has been found this to be the the most common issue when on a network and one that is easily resolved by contacting the network administrator in your I.T. department.

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