DSL bites AGAIN!

Oh this is getting to be too much. I gave in to the wifes nagging and got DSL instead of the Time/Warner Cable connection... at 3GBps is is pretty much as fast as what we had with cable since your DL speed is based on a sites transmission to YOU etc.

BUT

I cannot use ANY of the website email addresses I own since SBC shuts off access to Ports 21-26 - in a misguided attempt to FORCE me to use my sbcglobal email address.

Since that would be my personal address and ALL the others are business related (including remote login to the server at work) I am PORKED!!!

I can still logon in an HTML page (HORDE or SQUIRREL) but still this is Damned inconvenient! Ayone know of a mail server that will work through HORDE but not force me to open a page?

Just ring SBC and shout at them

I'm moving soon to a new flat and it's in a cabled area. I checked and I can receive cable services there. It would mean that I could finally leave behind the terrible experiances that I've had with DSL ISP's.

When I first moved to the flat I'm in now I got the aol service. Then changed to Tiscali, then bulldog Broadband and now finally I'm with Be Internet. With cable I never had issues with speed, web access, blocked ports, customer services teams based in Bulgaria, India, Uganda etc. Cable was perfect.

As soon as I move I'm signing up with Telewest Broadband.

Can't help you with the blocked ports but would suggest that you go back to Cable if possible.

port 21-26 includes SMTP, but not POP3...

you should be able to download your remote email by standard POP3 using port 110, and sent your outgoing email through the SBC SMTP server. Just make sure to give it your 'professional' email address in the from: field, and make sure to check the 'my server requires authentication' box, providing an SBC email username/password to get their server to relay it for you. More than likely that will work without problems.

By the way: in a misguided attempt to FORCE me to use my sbcglobal email address.
More than likely, they are doing this to prevent every monkey with a trojan on his computer from unwittingly relaying bazillions of viagra spam messages all over the internet, thereby getting the majority of SBC's IP space blacklisted by all other major ISP's on the planet, hurting everyone in the process. I doubt it's a deliberate attempt to get you to use their domain for your email.

lol Rook, here is a story for you:

Setup:
My wife actually works for SBC (well, they are called AT&T now). She gets a small (Very small) discount if we use their services.

Story:
So as she is paying the bill one day, a rep tries to sell her DSL. She said we have cable (And she knows that it is the Rep's job to sell you somehting on the phone no matter what your calling for, she is a rep, she knows this) and thus the rep pushed and pushed. Eventually she is asking me if I want to switch from my Timewarner to SBC DSL. I told her no, Rep pushes, she tells them I run servers out of my house and need the static ips. They say its only 7 bucks extra for a static ip.

After talking with the rep personally and verifying this, I ordered it. Package comes, install it (dont cancel cable yet though), find out line ISNT static... CAll them, they say static lines cost an extra $70.. SCREW THAT!!!!

Send package back, still happy with the world.

I had SBC's DSL back in '99-00 and I hated it. The damn router would always cut out with the modem (the PPPOE connection would drop and I would have to reset the router). No static ips, ports blocks, and at the mercy of SBC all the time... No thank you.

Not to mention remembering being an onsite consultant for many of the local Wisconsin Businesses. I would call up SBC to tell them such and such customer would need a new router where they would tell me they need to go through troubleshooting with me. I know how their troubleshooting works, I have done it many times with them. You spend 4 hours doing their step by step procedure just to find the same thing as you found out before you called them... I couldn't bill the customer 125 an hour for that, they wouldnt pay that! So I pushed many of my customers away from SBC as well..

Since 2001, I have had RoadRunner. My ip isn't static, but it never changes (unless my modem is shut off for more than 12 hours, then it renews the ip). My bill is $30 a month and the speed is 3mb down and 800k up (on an average day). I would never go back to DSL...

Can you tell I am bitter with SBC??? My wife wont even bring up her job in conversation at home because I have nothing good to say about SBC!



Actually it is deliberate attempt to force you not to run a server. They want you using as little traffic as possible, and for those who have servers (and in most cases home users use it for gaming) will most likely suck bandwidth. If they can kill certain ports going to you, they can turn you off to hosting a server. 21 and 25 being FTP and SMTP respectivly.

Lastly if you had a trojan on your pc that was spamming out emails, its very easy for it to pull your SMTP settihgs out of outlook and use that (most worms will do that) which kinda makes locking out the ports useless.

There is a way around that. Merely relay your email through theirs. Most admins will relay through a notable host as chances are that your ip is probably blacklisted (most home account ips are) which makes any notable recipient reject the mail (my servers will reject any blacklisted ip it recieves email from). In your mail server you should find a setting for "remote gateway", simply set that to roadrunners or SBC's SMTP address and your server will route all email to them for them to process.

kill DSL, my cousin has it and i am going to probably get mad when i use it to even log on to here when i visit him and destroy the modemn

Meh, it's all relative. Her locally DSL blows cable out of the water. Despite the higher advertised speeds, in the evening you're lucky if you get dialup speeds at time, while the DSL is always zipping along.

All good ideas... What happens most speciffically is:

I get a message in thunderbird stating:

An Error occoured using Send Mail:
Mail server sent incorrect greeting.
Cannot connect to server 64.xx.xx.xx, 64.xx.xx.xx:25
CONNECT ERROR 10060

Which truly bites! I can recieve mail... just not send!

One argument to use when you're shouting at them is that you are paying for internet access, and by blocking ports they are not providing you the internet. The web does not encompass the internet. If they call themselves an ISP, they havn't a leg to stand on. If they still say go away, threaten to sue for reimbursement etc etc.

Yeah, thats a good thought and all, and with some companies it will work. But SBC/AT&T is big now, very big. They don't care how much you complain, you're merely a number that gives them sales from time to time. The rep's dont really care if you leave SBC for someone else, they figure you will eventually come crawling back, and the reps will make their commission again when you come back anyhow, so it's in their favor (trust me on that one).

Lastly, it's in their fine print. They filter certain ports with their own reasoning.