So, I just moved in with my parents, and I find myself using their internet (Qwest) for my internet purposes. The problem is, according to the guy I talked to on the phone, it’s not possible for me to send messages from my email client via SMTP because Qwest seemingly doesn’t use a SMTP server.
So, does anyone know how I can keep using my netzero email from Thunderbird? I’m willing to accept the possibility that the phone tech didn’t actually know what he was talking about (a hard lesson I learned from when I got my service from Cox Cable, now Suddenlink). Are there SMTP servers that I can use that don’t require that I be connected to their ISP? Does Qwest in fact have an SMTP server that the guy didn’t know about somehow? Can I send messages from Thunderbird via means other than SMTP?
Help me dopers, you’re my only hope! 
Here Seems to be the Qwest SMTP server names… Search for your City/State and you should have it there.
Otherwise, I dunno 
Hrm, doesn’t seem to have worked, but at least there seem to be servers. Maybe I’ll give them another call today and ask.
I may be missing something here, but I never had any problem checking POP email accounts on other ISP’s. I just connect (wireless, lan or dialup) to the other ISP, and start up outlook express and hit send and receive. I don’t change any of the settings of my email accounts.
The only problem was what I used my laptop in a public library, I unplugged their lan connector from their public use computers and plugged it into my laptop, internet worked, and receiving pop3 email worked, but I couldn’t send, a issue with their firewall I guess, but since I don’t think I was suppose to unplug their computers I wasn’t going to ask why I couldn’t send email 
The problem isn’t downloading messages from the pop server, it’s uploading new messages out to send them. The server info is different for each ISP (and sometimes different for each area for that ISP), so if you don’t know the right outgoing server, you can’t send messages.