The Perpetual Search for the Right (Inter)National ISP?

dirk asks: "We are currently in the market for a national (or even better international) ISP. We were using Prodigy, until they decided that we shouldn't be able to connect to SMTP servers other than their own (and a major function of our business is email, which must be done through our corporate mail servers). We have about 25 people who travel regularly and need to send and receive email. They connect about an hour a day. We really don't want to get each person a separate account, since their individual usage is so small. What we are looking for a national (or international) ISP who will allow us to connect to our SMTP server to send email, not cost us an arm and a leg, and allow us to have multiple people use the same account (if possible). People usually won't be on at the same time, but if they happen to coincide, we don't want someone getting booting in the middle of a session. Anyone know of anything even approaching this kind of beast?"

Comments

Feline Poop

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck all of you damned LambdaMOOers, take your Schmoo-FO and shove it up your collective ass!

Some answers

[haplo21112]

1. Compuserve, works pretty well for this and is fairly inexpensive, very much international
2. A little higher scale is UUNET Pal,(its on the Compuserve network actually), again very much international
3. Ok, this one will probably get me Trolled, but YES AOL is a potential Option for you they will let you pick up mail from other SMTP servers. and there is international access.
4. AT&T Worldnet should also be considered, I do not know the full extent of the network however.
5. Agian I'll get trolled, but you could also consider MSN.

Re:Some answers

[dirk]

1. Compuserve, works pretty well for this and is fairly inexpensive, very much international
2. A little higher scale is UUNET Pal,(its on the Compuserve network actually), again very much international
3. Ok, this one will probably get me Trolled, but YES AOL is a potential Option for you they will let you pick up mail from other SMTP servers. and there is international access.
4. AT&T Worldnet should also be considered, I do not know the full extent of the network however.
5. Agian I'll get trolled, but you could also consider MSN

Well, here's what we found out since I submitted this.

MSN is out. Even though their tech support told us they support connecting to other SMTP servers, once we made an account we found out they didn't. And the funny part is they suggested instead of cancelling we send mail through MSN messenger.

AT&T WorldNet looks very nice. They do allow connection to outside SMTP servers, but only after the account is active for a month (to filter out spammers).

Didn't check out Compuserve, but certainly will.

AOL does allow this stuff, but they have changed their policy so that if a second user logs in the first one is booted. This is not a viable option, because then you get into users who keep booting each other continuously (at least with our users you would).

UUNet is one I like a lot, but they are EXPENSIVE. 100 bucks a month for an account. And my boss is cheap.

It looks like we may have found a resolution with Prodigy finally, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to switch after it taking over a week and three email to even get someone to listen to our problem.

Re:Some answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out www.emr.net. Not listed on their site yet (brand new service), but they just sold me a dial-up account linked to a 1-800 number. $23.95 a month and it works all over (even in rural AZ at my father-in-law's, where there is no local ISP access) The 800 number is free of charge (no per minute like AOL) and they are a small outfit. I use my own mail server too, they just get me the PPP connection.

Why not use the ISP's smtp server?

[emf]

I think some ISP's do this to keep people from spamming (abusing open relays on other networks?). Anyway, why not just use the ISP's SMTP server?

Re:Why not use the ISP's smtp server?

[pete-classic]

Very probably because they make him use their domain (in the from header), which isn't going to work for a small business.

This is a pretty common problem.

-Peter

So much for Karma...

[clark625]

Okay, I'm probably not winning any points with anyone here; but I believe that it's not very important what ISP individuals use in the field. My previous employer allowed the field consultants to choose whatever ISP they desired, with the first $25 per month picked up by the company. To deal with the corporate e-mail, we just simply made entries into the "alias" file for sendmail. Most ISPs will allow the relay of e-mail (by domain) so long as the sender is connecting from inside their network. This means that our consultants could even send e-mail that "looked" like it came from our SMTP server; even though it really was send direct from the consultant's ISP.
Another great feature of having this flexibility with the field consultants is that they can individually pick the ISP they like and trust. If a consultant wishes to have broadband, then it's not a problem either. Face it, no single ISP can offer everything your field personnel need and want in their own (personal) lives. Might as well let them enjoy the 'net when they aren't working.

VPN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be useful to create your company's own domain and use that to host your employees' emails?

Not exactly what you are asking but . . .

[pete-classic]

I am a huge fan of the concept of webmail, particularly IMAP based webmail, because your messages don't get "stuck" in the webmail client('s database). In other words, just because you view a message in SquirrelMail</plug> today, doesn't mean you can't reply to it in Mozilla Mail tomorrow.

And it works from any box with access to your webserver (use of SSL is highly recommended).

Doesn't answer the ISP question, I know, but might be an answer to your SMTP woes.

-Peter

Re:Not exactly what you are asking but . . .

[biglig2]

Very true, and something we're very much into. The rational;e is that if all you need to do is check new e-mail and send a few messages (i.e. not long composing off-line) then web mail will do, and these days you can't go anywhere without finding a cyber-cafe. They're everywhere; coffeeshops, bookstores, airports, practiacally every business hotel.

I stopped at a motorway service station (er... what's that in american...freeway rest stop?) the other day, and I went past a big cluster of phone boxes outside the coffee shop. One of them looked a little odd; on closer look - you guessed it - an internet terminal.

And the best thing about this? Not lugging that damn laptop on the plane. My first business trip with just a pda in my jacket pocket - wow.

How about a VPN?

[mini me]

Assuming Prodigy (or insert your ISP here) doesn't block VPN connections, you could estabilish a private net back to the office, then all traffic would be routed (and encrypted I might add) through the VPN. The ISP then would have no control over, or even know what is sent over this private link.

VPN's are also great if you need access to computers behind your firewall.

Couldn't you send the SMTP...

[xiox]

Over a VPN link or on a different port? It'd probably get round their restrictions.

Try equant

[anticypher]

Equant is the customer facing part of SITA, and they have a pretty extensive international network. Its the only network with a presence in every country in the world.

They have dial-in points in pretty much every country, and can allow your roamers to set up VPNs back to your firewall. They offer crypto-card services and other geeky things for security.

If your boss is as cheap as you say, then stick with a bunch of AOL accounts. Real ISPs who allow their customers to act like professionals cost more money than the clueless discount ISPs or AOLs of the world. Let your boss know that the image your customers see is directly proportional to the budget you have to work with, and if he can run the business without customers, there are a bunch of dotbombs who would love to hire him (for stock options only, of course).

the AC

Try this

[Xenna]

www.gric.com is an organization that allows the participating ISP's to use each others networks. I'm not sure if you're allowed to attach to external SMTP servers, so you'd have to ask.

As for the multiple logins, I don't know...

Regards,
Xenna

SSH Tunnels

[dead_penguin]

Why not just use ssh port forwarding (tunneling) to connect to the remote mail server? If the boxes dialing in to the isp are some variant of unix, it's as simple as:

ssh -l user@host -L localport:mailserver:25

and then configuring the client software to connect to the localhost at localport for sending mail. Most windows ssh clients will let you do the same thing (somehow).

Of course, this is assuming that the mail server you're wanting to connect to is actually *yours*, or at the least you can get it set up to allow incoming ssh and port forwarding. If it all works, though, as an added bonus all of your communication between the dialup host and your mail server will be encrypted.

attglobal.net

[gempabumi]

we use AT&T Global. they have a pretty big footprint. use them with VPN and you'll be all set.

How about a simpler solution.

[duffbeer703]

Keep using whatever ISP you use now, and run a POP daemon on port 80 or some other port.

Just use the mail server

[datavortex]

Prodigy has (finally) now implemented port 25 filtering, after no little amount of prodding from the rest of the idustry. This practice significantly reduces the spam output from a network - no more worrying about open relays, etc. But as you point out, it does limit your mail server options.

There is no reason, howe ver, that you can't use the perscribed servers. All it's changing is a few IP addresses in a "Received" header that no one is ever going to look at anyway. It's really not a big deal unless your ISP can't keep their servers alive. And if that's the case, why are you with them in the first place?

There's nothing stopping you from POPing mail into your client from every server you can imagine (POP3 service runs on port 110, not 25), and your "From" and "To" fields are set clientside, and will remain unchanged. In the end, there is sure to be some adjustment, but likely little loss in functionality.

If this is not a feasible solution for you, perhaps it is time to consider upgrading to a commercial internet account, they start around $70 a month, and you can run your own non-port-25-filtered mail server (I don't know that Prodigy sells business accounts anymore, but most national ISPs, including us, do.