Quick update.
Since posing my question this afternoon, I've read more about SPF & DKIM (& DMARC & ARC) than a simple user should.
I understand a little of the history of how SPF broke email forwarding and how it can be used in conjuction with SRS & DKIM, and I understand that the header traces of none, softfail, fail, permerror & neutral that I see, come from the email sender's server configuration and SPF Record syntax. I still don't understand why some emails that fail/softfail come through straight away and some that are none/neutral are extensively delayed (if not rejected) and vice versa.
So my questions are a little different from the original post, if a Telstra email expert picks this up.
What causes some emails that are forwarded from the array of mx0#.nic.name mail servers that I use, to be delayed by up to 12 hours, whilst others, like my emails this evening, come through almost instantaneously, independent of the result of the SPF-Received query?
Is there something you can do to ensure that all emails addressed to either my bigpond.com or .name address(es)* can always come through straight away, by something like whitelisting the nic.name mail servers†?
Would love an answer. Please excuse me if I have any of this wrong. I'm not very technical.
Patrick
* My wife uses the same setup for her private email with a fname@lname.name address forwarded to her username@bigpond.com. email.
† The servers that I can currently see in my email headers are;
- mx01.nic.name 72.13.32.170
- mx02.nic.name 72.13.32.171
- mx03.nic.name 69.58.186.170
- mx04.nic.name 69.58.186.171