Email Port Blocked

Because there is so much spam already flying around the Internet, many ISP’s have adopted a very aggressive port blocking strategy; they simply don’t allow any emails to be sent unless it is going to their servers, where presumably they can authenticate it. For those of us traveling with our virtual offices, this can be a real problem, because we rarely have an account on the local ISP when working from a remote office. Even if we have an account, we usually want to use our home email server to send and receive mail.

If you operate your own email service, we highly recommend opening an additional port for SMTP. Depending on the platform it is running on, this is generally not a complex operation. Just make sure you leave port 25 open as well, because that is the way other email servers forward mail to your server. Changing your email service to another port without leaving port 25 open is like boarding over your front door and leaving a window open around back – most people will think your house is abandoned.

An alternative is to use a service like domainMX.net. This service is particularly useful if you have your own email domain for your small business or personal use. They will act as a backup email server for your regular domain, and also forward email on an alternate port with authentication. The service is comfortably priced at around $25 per year for a low volume of mail per month. Well worth the price to keep your mail flowing while you take your virtual office on the road!