Re: [cobalt-users] OT: ISP's and Port 25 blocks

["Chris \"Oger\" Gebhardt" <oger@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I'm sure that many of you are aware of have been directly affected by
> various ISP's blocking port 25....
> About 95% of our clients are small businesses which we allow for them
> to relay through our servers (smpt=mail.their-domain-name.com).
<SNIP!>
> We're looking for a solution to this - obviously we need to keep port
> 25 active on our servers in order to receive mail from outside sources
> (correct me if I'm wrong, but please don't flame).....but there must be
> an alternative to this - perhaps mapping the smtp port to an unused
> port?

This has been discussed before, and I think everybody's feeling it.   As
silly as it is, more and more ISPs are blocking :25.  Best solution will be
for your customers to use their ISP's outgoing e-mail server.  All else can
stay the same, but just replace the SMTP server information in their e-mail
client.   A couple of our customers have had ISPs that will neither allow
them to use an "external" SMTP server nor send e-mail with a different
domain name through their SMTP.  After a little bit of discussion, our
customers determined that their ISPs were hampering their ability to
effectively do business - we were not to blame, but the ISP was.  They
ditched that ISP.

An interesting note... we have traditionally been a webhosting only company.
Now we have begun to resell access products, thereby having an instant
solution to these types of issues.

Good luck!

--Chris