is there a way to unblock an smtp port

[Liame]

my isp, Peoplepc, is blocking the outgoing port 587, so I am unable to use
Outlook with my peoplepc email accounts. Is there anyway of unblocking the
isp's outgoing smtp port or a way of circumventing the block? I want to be
able to use Outlook because it gives me email handling capabilities that I
can't get if I use webmail (their web server?).
Thanks

 

[K. Orland]

RFC 2476 defines the "mail submission port" as port 587.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2476.html

Port 587 should only accept email via SMTP AUTH, and as such cannot be
used by spam/virus bots. Commonly ISP's block port 25. I actually haven't
heard of many who block 587.

Do you know what port you can use? Why can't you configure Outlook to use
the port they specify?

Outlook is just a client, I don't know why you couldn't use it with any ISP.

 

[Liame]

thank you for your email - since I posted my email, I had a chance to speak
with a senior tech support person at PeoplePC - I was going to ask him to
unblock port 587 for my line - and I found some things out. The first thing
is they don't support Outlook in the sense of giving tech support on it, so
that limited the conversation. What I found out was that this person said
that PeoplePC does NOT block port 587, or for that matter, port 25. He said
that people who were using some tvinternet thing that PeoplePC bought were
using Outlook and it worked with PeoplePC.

Anyhow, the end result is, I cannot use Outlook with my PeoplePC email -
this is for sending email, which I want to use Outlook for. I can use
Outlook Express, but I want some of the capabilities of Outlook.

Why am I unable to send emails using Outlook with my PeoplePC email account?

I have gone over the server addresses and the settings. I do have Norton
SystemWorks 2005 installed (NAV, Firewall). I don't know if that is causing
some problem. But I can use Outlook with my Roadrunner email, so it
shouldn't be the Norton. So Outlook is working, but not with PeoplePC. I do
my business with PeoplePC emails and wouldn't switch to Roadrunner, which is
a temporary email account for me.

Could the inability of using the PeoplePC smtp server with Outlook be
related some kind of programming or settings within the PeoplePC server
system with the result that it just can't work?

I would love to know if there's anything I can do.
Thanks

With regard to your comment that "Outlook is just a client, I don't know why
you couldn't use it with any ISP," in looking on the internet to try to fix
this problem, I've seen that apparently many ISP's do not allow sending from
other than directly from their own smtp server. Again, I do not know what is
going on with this.

 

[K. Orland]

Part of this doesn't make sense. What happens when you do configure Outlook
to use PeoplePC? Are there errors? What do they say?
Most ISP's do require you to use their SMTP mail server for outgoing mail.
It's what you pay them for.

 

[Liame]

Yes, there are errors - I'm going from memory here - something like Can't
send email, or Connection to server interrupted, or, if I tried with
authentication, something like the server doesn't use authentication. That
kind of thing.

In regard to ISP's requiring you to use their smtp mail server, I'm under
the impression that a number of ISP's do let you use Outlook to send email,
so you wouldn't be using their web mail to send the email, but Outlook.
Also, PeoplePC does work with Outlook Express, so I don't think it's an issue
of their requiring you to use their webmail (web server?) to send email. I
don't know why they don't let you use Outlook - it could be their system just
isn't updated to do whatever has to be in place for you to be able to use
Outlook or it could be something else. I don't know.

I've read on the internet that some ISP's allow you to request that a port
be unblocked for you to use Outlook, but that's not the case with PeoplePC -
anyhow they say the ports aren't block. Basically, they don't know anything
about Outlook since tech support doesn't support it.

Still need help!

 

[K. Orland]

You'll need to be more specific with the error messages since they are
probably integral to solving the issue.
If your ISP doesn't support Outlook it just means they have no training with
it, it doesn't mean you can't use it and if the ports aren't blocked it's
possibly an Outlook configuration issue rather than a PeoplePC issue. That's
why the error message wording and/or error numbers would be important.