Oh, I know how to use webmail. It is just that I prefer to have all my accounts in one email client and not have to visit a dozen sites. Webmail is OK for sporadic messages but does not cut it for volume work.
“Early Out” and Markxxx have given good advice. The supervisor is correct. It’s perfectly normal that you can’t send through (ie relay) an ISP’s outgoing mail server if you are not on their network because you are connecting with another ISP. It looks like mail.bellsouth.net doesn’t even accept a connection, let alone relay if you are not on their network. I just tried telnetting to it from a system that I know is not blocked on port 25 and it doesn’t respond at all, ie I get the same result as your hyperterminal test.
So you’re connecting with an ISP other than Bellsouth, right?
So it sounds like you can send email from these other accounts when connecting with this other ISP. If that’s right then check what outgoing mail server these other accounts use and change the Bellsouth account to use the same outgoing server. Unless you have some other server that you can authenticate to (maybe Gmail as some have suggested) then you need to use the server of the ISP that you are connecting to the net with.
Most ISP’s outgoing smtp servers don’t care what the From address is so you can usually send from any ISP and still appear to be sending “From” something@bellsouth.net or whatever. That’s not always true. Long ago I used Verizon and they started blocking anything that wasn’t “From” something@verizon.net or a domain hosted by them. Strangely, they left port 25 open so it really made no sense.
Yes, I know workarounds but the point is that I do not think I should be looking for workarounds to use a paid account. If I can use Gmail, which is free, from any computer I can’t see why Bellsouth can’t do the same. It seems to me that using authentication should be enough to assure Bellsouth that the user trying to connect to their server is indeed a Bellsouth customer. Not to mention the waste of time on the phone tryiong to resolve the issue just because the tech rep just did not have a clue. They just follow a script and at the end the solution is “Flash BIOS and reinstall Windows”. That’ll shup up everyone. For a while.
I think you’re being a little unfair to the Bellsouth support people. I don’t deny that first level people will quickly reach the end of their script and will often suggest something that is obviously not going to help but … think about what you’re really asking. If I understand your problem, you’re asking them: “How do I use your outgoing mail server to send me@bellsouth.net mail from this other ISP?”. Bellsouth doesn’t control the other ISP. They don’t know what ports that ISP blocks. Yes, a server that can do authenticated smtp and responds on a port other than 25 would probably solve your problem. My admittedly limited experience with big ISPs is that they don’t usually provide that. Their focus is on providing outgoing mail service for customers on their network. The first person you spoke to was probably following his script assuming that you were on the Bellsouth network.
Plenty of low cost web hosts (and maybe Gmail for free) will give you an authenticated mail server on alternative ports that you can use from anywhere or … you should use the mail server of the ISP you are connecting with.
This makes absolutely no sense. None. Of course other ISPs might block ports and cause problems but that is not an excuse for Bellsouth to block them and pre-emptively cause the problem themselves.
I use quite a few email accounts all on different servers and Bellsouth is the only one which gives me a problem. If the others can do it I can’t see why Bellsouth can’t do it.
I, like many people, travel and work. I connect to the Internet from many places: businesses I visit, public places, libraries, airports, etc. I want to be able to send email from any of these places and with all my other accounts I can do it. Only Bellsouth seems to have a problem. Maybe Bellsouth is directed to customers who never leave the house.
And if that’s the way they do it then the question “are you connected to the internet using Bellsouth?” should come before suggesting a reinstallation of Outlook Express and/or Windows. It is not the fault of the guy in India reading the script and I don’t blame him. I blame Bellsouth for the lousy tech service.
So, no matter how you slice it, Bellsouth sucks.
At any rate, now that I know exactly what the cause of the problem is, another day when I have time to kill I might give them a call and see if I can get to someone more knowledgeable who can tell me how to get around the block and send email.
Regarding sending out emails from a Bellsouth.net address:
I was having the problem as your state, that is, I am able to receive emails but was not able to send emails.
I followed your instructions and after many trials and errors, I finally was able to do the following:
I used for incoming: pop.Bellsouth.net
I used for outgoing: smtp.att.yahoo.com
for outgoing server requirements: I required authentication.
I used default settings for “Advanced” settings. I used 110 and 25, an encrypted connection. I am finally able to send out emails.
Funny, something must have changed because I went to my “Sent” box and something must have changed with ATT because I was able to use the pop.Bellsouth.net in the past and it worked. But today when I tried to send an email from Outlook Express, it would not go until I did all this changes and thanks a lot to you all for your help.
the change that really made a difference was for outgoing server: smtp.att.yahoo.com.
The surprising part is that Yahoo is still around four years later.