Looking for 2 x POP box, 2 x SMTP AUTH...

I have finally capitulated under the onslaught of spam etc and
following a friend's advice (who does custom internet provision for a
number of corporate clients) have signed up with Messagelabs.

It works very well...

However, currently the filtered emails get piped (via SMTP, fixed IP)
to my old in-house email server. This works well, is free, and it also
has an authenticated SMTP server so I can transmit emails via it from
anywhere in the world.

I would like to do away with this in-house server because very
occassionally it falls over and obviously I don't have 24/7 support on
it.

I know I can get what I need but I am a tight bastard and I don't want
to spend a fortune. The ML minimum package is way too expensive
already, at £420/year.

I need two POP boxes on a fixed IP to which the ML emails can be sent,
with a webmail facility also. And ideally a control panel so I can
change the configs myself without hassling anybody. There are about 15
domain names involved, although there are just 2 POP accounts in the
end.

I also need two SMTP email sending accounts.

Both of the above must not do any IP blacklist checking so that if
e.g. I am in some dodgy country (Albania?) where the local 3G provider
is blacklisted as a whole (because they charge only 2p per MB so
spammers use it heavily - Vodacom in South Africa is a prime example)
I still need to be able to get in to read and send emails.

I have asked the office ISP (whose systems are obviously 24/7
supported) but I don't think they understand the request. I was going
to ask my home ISP (ZEN) next, but ISPs like to push their own spam
filtering... which is no good because they use blacklists and I do
business with some countries (like S America) which are often
blacklisted.... which is why I went to ML which seems to do things
differently.

Can anybody recommend a service which is 24/7 supported, costs no more
than a few tens of £ per year, and supports emails up to 50MB. The
actual usage is pretty small (1 private user and 1 small business).

ML say that the email server they send emails to should have its
firewall set up to accept emails only on the ML IP ranges, which makes
sense (we are getting spam sent *direct* to our in-house server now,
presumably due to stale DNS caches) but I doubt any "ISP" is going to
do that.

ML do not support message forwarding, only SMTP delivery to an IP.

Many thanks for any suggestions.

"Peter" <occassionally-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have finally capitulated under the onslaught of spam etc and
> following a friend's advice (who does custom internet provision for a
> number of corporate clients) have signed up with Messagelabs.
>
> It works very well...
>
> However, currently the filtered emails get piped (via SMTP, fixed IP)
> to my old in-house email server. This works well, is free, and it also
> has an authenticated SMTP server so I can transmit emails via it from
> anywhere in the world.
>
> I would like to do away with this in-house server because very
> occassionally it falls over and obviously I don't have 24/7 support on
> it.
>
> I know I can get what I need but I am a tight bastard and I don't want
> to spend a fortune. The ML minimum package is way too expensive
> already, at £420/year.
>
> I need two POP boxes on a fixed IP to which the ML emails can be sent,
> with a webmail facility also. And ideally a control panel so I can
> change the configs myself without hassling anybody. There are about 15
> domain names involved, although there are just 2 POP accounts in the
> end.
>
> I also need two SMTP email sending accounts.
>
> Both of the above must not do any IP blacklist checking so that if
> e.g. I am in some dodgy country (Albania?) where the local 3G provider
> is blacklisted as a whole (because they charge only 2p per MB so
> spammers use it heavily - Vodacom in South Africa is a prime example)
> I still need to be able to get in to read and send emails.
>
> I have asked the office ISP (whose systems are obviously 24/7
> supported) but I don't think they understand the request. I was going
> to ask my home ISP (ZEN) next, but ISPs like to push their own spam
> filtering... which is no good because they use blacklists and I do
> business with some countries (like S America) which are often
> blacklisted.... which is why I went to ML which seems to do things
> differently.
>
> Can anybody recommend a service which is 24/7 supported, costs no more
> than a few tens of £ per year, and supports emails up to 50MB. The
> actual usage is pretty small (1 private user and 1 small business).
>
> ML say that the email server they send emails to should have its
> firewall set up to accept emails only on the ML IP ranges, which makes
> sense (we are getting spam sent *direct* to our in-house server now,
> presumably due to stale DNS caches) but I doubt any "ISP" is going to
> do that.
>
> ML do not support message forwarding, only SMTP delivery to an IP.
>
> Many thanks for any suggestions.

Tollon, perhaps? Buy a couple of domains with mail hosting, you can
configure A and MX records yourself ...

--
Graham J

Peter wrote:
> I have finally capitulated under the onslaught of spam etc and
> following a friend's advice (who does custom internet provision for a
> number of corporate clients) have signed up with Messagelabs.
>
> It works very well...
>
> However, currently the filtered emails get piped (via SMTP, fixed IP)
> to my old in-house email server. This works well, is free, and it also
> has an authenticated SMTP server so I can transmit emails via it from
> anywhere in the world.
>
> I would like to do away with this in-house server because very
> occassionally it falls over and obviously I don't have 24/7 support on
> it.
>
> I know I can get what I need but I am a tight bastard and I don't want
> to spend a fortune. The ML minimum package is way too expensive
> already, at £420/year.
>
> I need two POP boxes on a fixed IP to which the ML emails can be sent,
> with a webmail facility also. And ideally a control panel so I can
> change the configs myself without hassling anybody. There are about 15
> domain names involved, although there are just 2 POP accounts in the
> end.
>
> I also need two SMTP email sending accounts.
>
> Both of the above must not do any IP blacklist checking so that if
> e.g. I am in some dodgy country (Albania?) where the local 3G provider
> is blacklisted as a whole (because they charge only 2p per MB so
> spammers use it heavily - Vodacom in South Africa is a prime example)
> I still need to be able to get in to read and send emails.
>
> I have asked the office ISP (whose systems are obviously 24/7
> supported) but I don't think they understand the request. I was going
> to ask my home ISP (ZEN) next, but ISPs like to push their own spam
> filtering... which is no good because they use blacklists and I do
> business with some countries (like S America) which are often
> blacklisted.... which is why I went to ML which seems to do things
> differently.
>
> Can anybody recommend a service which is 24/7 supported, costs no more
> than a few tens of £ per year, and supports emails up to 50MB. The
> actual usage is pretty small (1 private user and 1 small business).
>

I am still using claranet for this, to receive emails.

I send by whoever is the upstream SMTP relay for the ISP I am connected to.


> ML say that the email server they send emails to should have its
> firewall set up to accept emails only on the ML IP ranges, which makes
> sense (we are getting spam sent *direct* to our in-house server now,
> presumably due to stale DNS caches) but I doubt any "ISP" is going to
> do that.
>

Think claranet filters can be set to do that.


> ML do not support message forwarding, only SMTP delivery to an IP.
>
> Many thanks for any suggestions.

The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

>I am still using claranet for this, to receive emails.

Funny you mention Clara...

Years ago my business used them as the ISP.

One day, no internet. No IP, nothing. After a load of music on hold
etc, I found somebody there who said they cut off the connection, due
to abuse.

They would not say why, due to "data protection act".

Eventually I was told it was due to an allegation of P2P file sharing.

Like hell it was - at work! No way. I was the only PC user there.

Eventually they revealed it was a single email from Symantec which
caused them to do this, about Winfax (curious, an obsolete product by
then).

I called them asking for a confirmation that a single unsupported
email (which can be forged) is enough to make them terminate a
business account, instantly, without them asking for supporting
evidence. They replied YES.

Go figure

It got better...

They insisted on us paying the remainder of the year's contract before
allowing another ISP on the line.

I got onto BT who confirmed they allow ISPs to "grab" phone lines in
this way, to avoid people signing up with an ISP and not paying their
bill. BT said they would allow another ISP on the line only if the
original ISP went into liquidation.

But BT told me there was another way: renumber the line.

Luckily this was a throw-away analog line (the firm used ISDN for
comms) so we renumbered it, and got rid of Clara that way. We still
paid off the 12m contract but this enabled us to be back online within
days. In the meantime we used 64k ISDN dial-up.

It was a lesson learnt about eggs and baskets, though I doubt many
other ISPs would really act on an email allegation like that.

This is why IMHO one should not have one's email hosted by one's
main-feed ISP. Unless one has two ISP feeds, which means two analog
lines, etc.

Peter wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
>
>> I am still using claranet for this, to receive emails.
>
> Funny you mention Clara...
>
> Years ago my business used them as the ISP.
>
> One day, no internet. No IP, nothing. After a load of music on hold
> etc, I found somebody there who said they cut off the connection, due
> to abuse.
>
> They would not say why, due to "data protection act".
>
> Eventually I was told it was due to an allegation of P2P file sharing.
>
> Like hell it was - at work! No way. I was the only PC user there.
>
> Eventually they revealed it was a single email from Symantec which
> caused them to do this, about Winfax (curious, an obsolete product by
> then).
>
> I called them asking for a confirmation that a single unsupported
> email (which can be forged) is enough to make them terminate a
> business account, instantly, without them asking for supporting
> evidence. They replied YES.
>
> Go figure
>
> It got better...
>
> They insisted on us paying the remainder of the year's contract before
> allowing another ISP on the line.
>
> I got onto BT who confirmed they allow ISPs to "grab" phone lines in
> this way, to avoid people signing up with an ISP and not paying their
> bill. BT said they would allow another ISP on the line only if the
> original ISP went into liquidation.
>
> But BT told me there was another way: renumber the line.
>
> Luckily this was a throw-away analog line (the firm used ISDN for
> comms) so we renumbered it, and got rid of Clara that way. We still
> paid off the 12m contract but this enabled us to be back online within
> days. In the meantime we used 64k ISDN dial-up.
>
> It was a lesson learnt about eggs and baskets, though I doubt many
> other ISPs would really act on an email allegation like that.
>
> This is why IMHO one should not have one's email hosted by one's
> main-feed ISP. Unless one has two ISP feeds, which means two analog
> lines, etc.


I have to say that from a really good bunch of chaps with top notch
support and superlative hosting, My experience of their high handedness
and general lack of nous at the lower levels of service caused me to
ditch them for ADSL.

At which point I discovered that I had been paying for both my original
service AND the higher bandwidth service I upgraded to, after they cut
me off without warning, for nearly two years.

I did get my money back, but only after I enquired why they hadn't
refunded what they said they would., They told me I had to EMAIL my bank
details to them. I refused and sent them by registered snail mail.
Imagine. An ISP who want you to send your full bank details in clear.

I still have domain hosting and mailboxes with them though, because the
spam filters are very good.

But they have all the hallmarks of a company that's been taken over by
beancounters, and where the technical nous has been squeezed into a
corner, and will finally all disappear in frustration.

The bandwidth was always good though. No complaints there. And teh mail
and hosting has always been reliable. It was support, attitude and
general service and price which drove me away from their ADSL..

After speaking to a bunch of people today I have decided to give up on
this and stick with my in-house email server.

The job involves receiving emails from Messagelabs via SMTP and
sorting them into one of 2 mailboxes, according to the recipient
addresses, ignoring MX records.