On 25 Feb 2013, at 8:26, Dennis Putnam wrote:
I guess I'm not surprised either. Unfortunately with ISPs blocking outgoing SMTP there are few alternatives.
That is generally a function of what sort of access you buy. The sad reality is that blocking port 25 helps limit the scale & cost of abuse desk and retail tech support operations, so ISPs block port 25 by default on their cheapest access accounts. Depending on your provider, you may be able to get port 25 unblocked just by asking for it or by paying a premium for a "business grade" account, but it can be difficult to run a mailing list from anywhere in the address space of a "consumer" ISP because of receiver-side filtering.
I wonder if any of the pay SMTP servers would work any better.
Intentional providers of paid SMTP smarthost service do exist in the market. Freemail operations exist to muster users for operations that sell their aggregated eyeballs or for "upselling" into revenue-producing services. Mail smarthost service, especially for anything of a "bulk" nature, is a costly and risky service to provide which doesn't provide much opportunity for a freemail operator to resell eyeballs or lead users to paid services, so it is natural that they are intentionally closing off the ability to use them as smarthosts for free.
If you're willing & able to be a small-scale sysadmin, it may be worth the trouble to forget about buying SMTP smarthost service and instead get a small virtual private server with a reputable provider. Just as being on a consumer ISP network can mean that you share the aggregate reputation of everyone else on that network, routing mail through a shared smarthost (even one charging for service) throws your lot in with all of the customers of that service and buying a VPS on the cheap (e.g. Amazon EC2) means you end up at least partially sharing the reputation of everyone else using the same low-rent provider. It's unfortunate, but as the net has matured it has taken on some of the same features as the real world; the market value your home (real or presumed) is a source of prejudices made tangible in how likely strangers are to trust you.
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