Hi all,
The list has been quiet of late. However, one of the functions of a list is
to bring together people with a common interest. This is to avoid causing
'the glazed eye' effect in others when one cannot control one's delight in
the discovery of, say, a new POP service. The following little tale may
strike a resonance in some of you.
Having struggled valiantly with the ever-diminishing pool of free ISP's,
supplemented by an actual pay service on evenings and weekends, I finally
admitted defeat and began the search for a full-time paid ISP.
When a national ISP (who shall remain nameless but whose initials are AT&T
Canada ;>) offered a $100 gift certificate for a one year sign up and whose
unlimited service is a whole $2.30 cheaper than the known quantity, the
local phone company's internet service, I made some serious inquiries.
First I asked if AT&T Canada implemented a Port 25 and whether it was
necessary to use their connection software in order to take advantage of
the $100 'gifto'. Their Tech Support e-mailed me the happy answers of "No
Port 25 block" and "No connection software necessary". Apparently being
both foolish and naive, I believed them.
Having signed up at the local Radio Shack, I quickly set up a DUN
connection and was instaneously online. Basking in this new connection, I
beavered around the Net, revelling in the lack of restrictions.
Such happy news had to be conveyed a to few out of town family members so I
fired up my e-mail client (Calypso) and using the customary POP account for
these folks, I tried to send my first e-mail while connected to AT&T
Canada. Being the knowledgeable types that you are, you've already guessed
what's coming. That's right - the brick wall - otherwise known as a Port 25
block.
At first, I was incredulous. I tried other accounts, other e-mail clients
but I knew, deep down, that it was indeed the old Port 25 block. When I
successfully sent a single test message using Mochamail through its 2525
SMTP port, I felt that my worst fears were truly confirmed.
I have e-mailed Tech Support, which has a target turnaround response time
of 48 hours. That was 72 hours ago but I still haven't heard even a peep
from them. I phoned Tech Support and listened to a lot of Bach before
finally speaking with a Tech support guy who evidently was hired yesterday.
He had never heard of Port 25 but that didn't prevent him from arguing with
me.
Is this bit of Internet information so arcane and esoteric that one must
travel much further up the food chain before reaching someone
knowledgeable? I will be the first in line to admit that I don't know very
much about a lot of internet elements but even my limited information
covers e-mail and servers.
Curious to see what networks AT&T Canada was using here I ran a tracer
route programme and then did a similar check while connected to NBNet, the
regional ISP - the one **without** the Port 25 block. Two totally different
networks out of my city showed up. (A small point: it took the AT&T
connection 22 hops to Xipmail in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia but NBNet did it in
only 16)
While I know I could use AT&T Canada's SMTP server for all my outgoing
mail, I don't want to. I am extremely attached to my small but delightful
collection of POP3/SMTP accounts and want to use them as currently
configured. I can't see AT&T Canada actually doing anything to alleviate
this. While their stated policy may be no Port 25 block, that is very
obviously **not** the policy of the company which actually owns the lines
regionally.
It seems I will have to forego AT&T's $100 gifto and pay the slightly
higher charges of the regional ISP to get the service I want. I ought to
have known it was too good to be true.
A - sadder but wiser in Canada
