METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL

[Neil Joseph Schelly]

On Tuesday 07 March 2006 03:34 pm, aluminumsulfate at earthlink.net wrote:
>          ---====================================---
>              METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
>          ---====================================---
>
> I just got off the phone with Steve Bradley of Metrocast's
> (http://www.metrocastcablevision.com/) technical support.
>
> Metrocast, last week, started filtering packets sent by their
> customers to port 25 on ALL Internet hosts.  Yes, you read that right:
> Metrocast is filtering ALL port 25 packets OUTBOUND from their
> residential customers.

While I understand your frustration, what they are doing is a pretty valid way 
to reduce spam.  If you're running your own mail server somewhere you want to 
use, then you can run a mail server on an alternate port.  Lots don't block 
465 (ssmtp) or 587 (alternate smtp).  In my case, since I can never remember 
those port numbers, I run a mail server on 26 and tell those that need to 
relay through me (authenticated of course) to use port 26.

You could also configure your local machine to smarthost all email through 
your ISP's mail server.  The only problem here is with SPF.  If you control 
the domain, you'll want to add their mail server to your SPF record so that 
it is recognized as a "valid" sender of email from your domain.  If you don't 
control the domain, perhaps your company can build a VPN setup.  There 
certainly would be no problem with using the VPN to access your mail server, 
bypassing your ISP's firewall.

This isn't something to get so bent out of shape for really.  If you know how 
email and dns works, then you can work around it very easily.  And if it 
still causes you problems, then as others said, shell out some extra money to 
get a commercial account.  At the very least, I can suggest that ProSpeed, a 
local DSL provider in Tyngsboro, MA gives me 1Mbps SDSL and a static IP fully 
knowing I have servers here for primarily non-commercial purposes and I'm not 
blocked.  They even setup my reverse DNS request without qualms.
-Neil