On Mon, 3 Apr 2006, Tom Parker wrote:

> On 03/04/2006, you wrote:
>
>> http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3623905a28,00.html
>>
>> Those of you who use Xtra, who are using alternative SMTP resources for
>> outbound mail, might pay to point back at smtp.xtra.co.nz...
>
> They're pushing this issue from both ends. I'm on Ihug, and a number of
> months ago, I got a bounce from AOL saying I was a dynamic host and they
> wouldn't accept mail from me. Now I relay through Ihug's smtp. AOL's bounce
> was clear and to the point, which was nice.

Speaking as someone who spent many years doing ISP tech support, including
dealing with spam, virus payloads and drone hosts...

The _only_ accepted convention nowadays is for SMTP to be driven through
the ISP you gain internet access through.[1]

With SMTP being entirely seperate to POP3 or IMAP, this policy doesn't
impact on your ability to use third party mail services.[2]

'nuff said.

Mark.

[1] I'm aware this is a fairly strong statement and there are exceptions
to every rule. This is a generalisation that applies for 99% of email
users. The exceptions would include those who can obviously engineer
around this restriction anyway!

[2] SPF might be a complication; but if the provider you're using for mail
are not the people who provide your Internet Access, they should be
designing with this in mind anyway.

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