|
Please remember folks, I don't consider cable a
true business capable service any more than you might. Far from it.
However, like anyone in my business you have to work with what you have and
if you are going to simply tell customers they should be using service
geared to support business customers, you might as well pack it in. Like
it or not, the truth is you help them or lose them and when helping them you
have to stay within their budget. There is always someone out there that
will assist them in their half-ass endeavors and the mentality is such that the
guy that supplies the half-ass, but working solution is, in their book, a
hero compared to the guy that told them how it 'should' be done.
My intention is to try to help this guy out as best
I can without breaking him. I can tell him all day how it should be, but
if I want to get paid I have to make it work somehow. I was also arguing
the point that what the cable company advertises as a business service is
nothing of the sort. My belief is they are deceiving their
customers. But, then again, what cable service providers don't do this to
some extent.
Perhaps we should just wait until the government
gets knee deep in the whole mess. I'm sure they will handle everything and
we'll all be happy again...
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004
14:02
Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] Batch
Sending
A
common theme I see in this email is you keep talking about business class
services and businesses. If your customer is using cable modem with
upload restrictions then your customer is not in many minds using a business
class internet connection. Most non business class cable modems I have delt
with have restricted the upload speed to something like 384kb. Where the
business class will either match the upload and download speed in many
cases.
Another reason with blocking port 25 is not just to make more money is
that residential/non business users are more suceptable to viruses and trojan
spamware that directly mail on port 25. where businesses are generally more
diligent about keeping this kind of stuff off of their
machines.
Also
If the customer is on cable modem directly mailing the there are other issues
with the users receiving mail. reverse DNS entry can not be changed to match
the domain name of the sending business. Many blacklist, public and private,
directly block residential cablemodem ip address ranges.
I
understand the needs of the small business. I consult fo amny 2-3 person shops
also. But I steer them in the direction of services that are easy to use and
makes tham look larger than they are.
I
think the suggestion of setting up a list server outside their network is the
best solution in this situation. I know you said your customer is technically
challenged. But I have had much success with the technically challenged and
list servers. Once setup they are a no brainer.
Kevin Bilbee
John, I agree with most everything you've said,
but this is a small business and sending out a couple thousand emails a week
is not a taxing task for a cable provider to handle. The extra money
they want to charge him is supposed to be specifically to deal with the
added cost of dealing with business use of the service. However, it is
my opinion this provider is using it as nothing more than a way to get more
money. It is not a better class of service and the only thing it gets
you is an unblocked port 25. No increased response to outage,
nothing.
It seems to some degree, the argument has
become what defines a small business. By definition, I believe it is
something like 500 employees or less. Even if it is 100, this would
still be a fairly large company and the cable provider doesn't care whether
it is 100 or 1. The price is the same. However, isn't it
reasonable to assume that since the Internet and email is so prevalent in
business that companies would have the need to broadcast emails to customers
now and then? Anyone who disagrees probably isn't in the real
world. I work with companies of 2 to 3 employees that have thousands
of active customers and keep up with it using technology, and yes they do
have a desire to send broadcast emails to their customers. It's a
cheap way to communicate.
The cable provider has no problem bombarding
their customers with emails, mailings, TV commercials, etc. Are their
business customers not entitled to the same freedoms for legit purposes,
especially when charging extra for the business service? With the
exception of the extra $70 per month, the business and residental class
service differ ONLY in that port 25 is not blocked for business class.
No static IP availability, nothing. We
have looked into other connectivity choices and based on his location there
are either none, or nothing cost effective.
Now, the only thing I can't quite figure
out is how the cable company could be figuring out how many emails you
send on the business class service if port 25 is not blocked and you are not
using their SMTP server.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004
12:42
Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] Batch
Sending
The functions
of the CRM software are not an issue here. What is at issue is the user
has a need to send out e-mails from his computer, and the ISP will not
allow outbound port 25 traffic to other servers, and restrict a per
session count of 50. To be honest with you, that sounds perfectly
reasonable a cable ISP provider, cable connections are primarily designed
for home and small business users, not those you need to run services on
them.
So, I would say
he has 2 reasonable options:
1. Change ISP
to a business class non-cable service.
2. Configure
the CRM software to send outbound to a different port to your server, and
configure your server/firewall to receive on that port and forward to your
mail server on port 25.
If he wants to
run business services (sending large amounts of e-mail from what ever
software) he needs to get a connection that is designed to allow
that.
John
Tolmachoff
Engineer/Consultant/Owner
eServices For
You
|
