It has come to our attention that BT have recently introduced changes to their network which are making it difficult for a number of customers to send emails, by adding their entire ADSL dynamic IP range to the SpamHaus Policy Block List (which basically tells the world not to accept emails from these addresses).
The SpamHaus block list is an invaluable tool used to register known sources of SPAM which mail servers can then block – thus reducing the amount of spam which makes it through to an end user’s mailbox.
By registering their entire ADSL network with SpamHaus, they have basically said “do not accept email from our customers” .. which is great, but of course that means that unless you jump through some hoops (or use a BT/Yahoo email address) you’re not going to be able to talk to anyone any more.
Thankfully we have a way around this, which utilises two well known and support techniques to transmit emails.
First of all you should always make sure that SMTP Authentication is enabled and that you use your email address and password to log into the SMTP Server. Secondly you should change your outbound SMTP Server port from 25 (the default) to 587. Port 587 is known as the email submission service and is designed specifically for end users to submit email through their ISP bypassing the anti spam blocks such as SpamHaus – but will only work if you have enabled SMTP Authentication. This service also supports SSL/TLS for secure transmission of password details and emails.
FidoNet supports the SMTP Submission service on all of our relays, and strongly advise all customers to use this technique regardless of their ISP.