I need to unblock port 25 so that my work email can send. How can I get this done?

[Spillane1732]

I am unable to send out emails from my work account. I just switched to AT&T uverse a few weeks ago.  My IT guy at work

Says I need to have AT&T unblock port 25.  Any advice on how to get this done?

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

Call Technical Support at the number shown in my signature.  There may be a fee for unblocking port 25.  You might ask your IT guy if another port number will work.

[sandblaster]

Port 25 is a standard port used for smtp. I do not believe it is blocked. I suspect your issue is something else. 

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

AT&T intentionally blocks outbound port 25 to any server other than AT&T's for spam control. This is the default for residential Internet accounts.

Unblocking it on a residential account requires a one-time charge.

[sandblaster]

---

SomeJoe7777 wrote:
AT&T intentionally blocks outbound port 25 to any server other than AT&T's for spam control. This is the default for residential Internet accounts.

Unblocking it on a residential account requires a one-time charge.

---

I stand corrected. Apparently it is common for ISP's to block outbound port 25 and Uverse is one of them.

[tbeebe]

Can anyone tell me what the one-time charge is?  I have the same problem, and need to unblock for when I work from home office.

[pc319]

I would try using port 587 before trying to get AT&T to unblock 25 for you.  I've also been able to use port 2525 in the past with previous work e-mail providers.

[slswyoming1]

People's attitudes simply blow me away!  I am paying for uverse.  I was not informed that private domain mail services would be BLOCKED.  I don't appreciate being ROBBED made to pay extra for something that other ISP's provide, because they are ABLE TO STOP SPAMMERS WITHOUT PUNISHING EVERYONE!!!   This on port 25 thing is a dead horse, used only by small and incompetent ISPs and, perhaps, GIGANTIC, OVERBLOATED, BRAIN-CHALLENGED EXECUTIVE-run ISP'S. 

SHAME ON YOU, AT&T!  Paying 5 million dollar bonuses to executives whose ideas are basically,

1. fire good experienced people who have pensions 

2. hire other people, pay them nothing, give them no training, ENCOURAGE THEM TO LIE ALL DAY to the customers, and make profit from doing so... this is obvious, because there is no review or feed procedure EVEN POSSIBLE for all these SALES people telling lies on the phone.

My uverse got hooked up today.  It was a culmination of misrepresentationa and bald-faced LIES that would make a crooked politician blush.  Now I've been on hold for over one hour trying to get PORT 25 unblocked so I can send out my mail.  I have 12 accounts using 3 different mail clients, over 6 different domains.  I've used this computer as is for xfinity, airport, starbucks, travel all over, even outside the country and never had to change my authentication/security settings in my client software - it worked EVERYWHERE.  The only place I know of that blocked port 25 because their employees could not control spamming was Cable & Wireless in the British Virgin Islands, population 20,000.

[slswyoming1]

Now on hold 1 hour and 8 minutes by David GC67B, who told me to stay on the line, but it is dead quiet for over 10 minutes.  Of course, if I hang up, I will have to start all over again!!! 

WHEN WILL I BE ABLE TO SEND MY EMAILS???  SOME ARE CRITICAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

Send a message to AT&T Customer Care, they are an escalation team of people who will get you the help you want.  They will reply to you via PM so watch for the blinking blue envelope next to the Sign Out button on the forum page.  Here is the link.

http://forums.att.com/t5/user/v1/viewprofilepage/user-id/192773

[slswyoming1]

He finally came back on the line.  He is in SE Asia, he said.  He said since AT&T decided to give me a credit today that is an open order.  And since there is an open order, he can't process the $49 to UNBLOCK PORT 25.  He wants me to give him a CREDIT CARD!! 

THIS IS AT&T I'm talking about - tech support FORWARDED me to supervisor who FORWARDED me to these guys who do this stuff for a FEE.

I told him to put what he said in WRITING, so that I can prove it to AT&T later.  He refused.  Now he has me on Hold again for his supervisor, because I'm not being the good little obedient customer with the ready credit card.  I wonder how long "David" will keep me on hold.  Now she is on she says she is with Connect Tech they REFUSE TO put in writing the fact that they must have a credit card because they can't charge the $49 while a CREDIT is being processed to my account.

I told her NO THANKS.  The call lasted 1 hour and 49 min, mostly me on hold.

....>>>>>>>>>  my post crashed the browser because it was waiting to connect to sniff.vistat.com and could not reach!!  What is that, ATT?

[slswyoming1]

Thanks David I sent it all in message at that link. I'm exhausted from 6 hours of at&t hassle. I'm too old and sick for this. Thanks so much for your help.

[slswyoming1]

Well it's another day, and there is no reply for that "team".

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

---

slswyoming1 wrote:

Well it's another day, and there is no reply for that "team".

---

Do you see the blue envelope next to the Sign Out button blnking?  If not send another PM to ATT Customer Care but also send one to Jamileh at the link below.  She is a Community Manager on the forum who can get you help also.

http://forums.att.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2548143

[bauwls]

slswyoming1

Perhaps U-verse isn't your choice of an ISP. Outbound port 25 blocking does have its purpose but is a change. It doesn't affect me in the slightest but then again, everyone uses their internet services differently.

You have a few options:
1. Ask for connectech, pay a 1-time charge to unblock port 25
2. Pay for a business account (they unblock port 25 outbound for business)
3. Change ISP
4. Switch your ports for client mail.

[slswyoming1]

Bawls,

I just finished exhaustive research and selection of what I can afford since getting sick and losing job, from what there is to offer in my area.  Result was entering contract with AT&T for home internet, and another for cell service, cancelling two other contracts, and passing on yet another deal, which now looks better, from Verizon.  The reason it looks better is AT&T did NOT divulge to me the port 25 issue before I entered the contract.  Have you ever heard of NON-REFUNDABLE?  Perhaps you never been unemployed with NO ONE to help you and medicine to buy.  Congratulations.  Perhaps you just like to tell people to throw away their money, even when it cost them dearly, perhaps their health, no biggie.

Connect-tec could have turned it off for me, but they wanted my CREDIT CARD number, they are a 3rd world company and I'm not giving it to them. The schemed to say it coujld not go on my at&t account as a charge, but I DID NOT BITE. All of this I think is clear in my posts, but you obviously prefer to give advice without spending needless time to first read and comprehend the situation.

RCSMG,

Thanks for your efforts to help me, it is greatly apprediated!!   I truly DO know what the little blue blnky envelope is, and no, they had not answered me at that time.  They have answered now, but it was  a "social media manager" (fighting bad pr) defending at&t for blocking port 25 by quoting a software company that sells a workaround (not one ok with my email provider) and informing me rather bluntly that I should expect to pay.  Sort of a "get rid of complaining customer by trying to make them feel like they are wrong, unjustified, and hoping they will GO AWAY AND SHUT UP."  That just reinforces my growing negative opinion of GIANT AT&T having gone the route of 'screw the customer, brown-nose the investor.'  Next time they request an acquisition, We The People should JUST SAY NO!

Well, so everyone can be EDUCATED (I am 3 decade IT professional, specializing in security, and have personally shut down hundreds of spammers domains, servers, provider accounts)  about the TRUE ISSUE involved here in the CORPORATE DECISION to take the CHEAP, EASY WAY OUT, here is my reply:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Don't show me the explanation from a company making money on ISP's who block port 25.  I can tell you, having been in IT for 33 years, who does, and why.  So those who do not include EVERY PERSON I'VE EVER VISITED IN THE PAST 10 YEARS, EVERY WEB CAFE, Comcast, Verizon, MY OWN AT&T CELL PHONE, AT&T ISP at my paren't house in Missouri, etc.  Who does and why?  It's cheap, it's easy, it puts more money in hands of STOCKHOLDERS, EXECUTIVES, and it screws the customer, punishing the good people for a few bad apples.  Blacklisting services and software are much more fair, and help to IDENTIFY AND PUNISH SPAMMERS, not simply send them elsewhere to let somebody else worry about them.  What a shameful, arrogant attitude of great big gigantic industry-leader AT&T!!!!!  just DESPICABLE!!! 

As to your arrogant reply that I should expect to pay for it

1. I EXPECTED TO BE INFORMED BEFORE ENTERING A ONE YEAR CONTRACT!!!!  This is CERTAINLY unique enough among establish ISP'S that it should have been DIVULGED by AT&T.  This is BAD FAITH CONTRACTING, and if I had enuf money to fight you in court, I WOULD WIN.

2. While on the phone to get the TECHNICAL SUPPORT to turn it off, I did not appreciate being STRONG-ARMED into a $149.00/year contract for support, which I don't need. 

3. The Technical Support to turn this off (for those people you don't favor and do it for free) is OUTSOURCED to a contractor in a 3rd world country in SE Asia - Indonesia, I believe?  I ABSOLUTELY am not going to give them my credit card over the phone (after they had me on hold for 40 minutes, cooking up some scheme whereby my AT&T account could not be charged).  I refused, I wasn't born yesterday.  I'm a SECURITY SPECIALIST.  That is the biggest risk I've seen in a while, taken via a virtual sliding board from the window of AT&T, who greased it up for me, too!  Shame, shame.  Who is going to hunt down and arrest that company and their employees if they part ways with AT&T tomorrow and sell their (my) information for big dollars to local terrorist organization with huge powers... the United Nations?  Ha!

[bauwls]

That's great and all. I'm just letting you know your options if you needed clarification. This is a user forum. Get in contact with AT&T directly if you need them.

[psroberg]

slswyoming1,

Did you ever get this issue resolved?  I have multiple non-ATT domain email accounts and a Uverse account at home.  All I had to do was "register" my non-ATT email addresses through ATT, and all my emails go out from home with no problems.  Before validating my email accounts, I could receive but not send - ATT was blocking outbound emails, I guess a result of their anti-spam policy.

Just curious if you had to throw money at a free, but hidden, solution.

[Pentium]

slswyoming1,

So to sum this up.
 

1. You are a 30 year network security veteran / expert... Yet you don't realize residential internet typically has port 25 blocked on several ISPs these days ever since ILOVEYOU worm came out many years ago.

2. You say "I have 12 accounts using 3 different mail clients, over 6 different domains." and "SOME ARE CRITICAL!!!!!!!" so your critical emails weren't worth the $49 one-time payment?

3. You don't get business class internet service for what appears to me to be business use? I have AT&T Business Internet and it took a couple seconds to open port 25 actually I called for some assistance with Static IP and DMZPlus setup and they already automatically opened port 25 since I mentioned my mail server.

You must not bill out as a consultant for your time or have very good time management as a couple of hours should have translated into way more than $49. I get that you don't want to give out your CC# to someone from across the world, I probably wouldn't have wanted to either. Then again I haven't had used residential internet for over 10 years. Even before cable and other such high speed I had SDSL, ADSL, T1, Bonded-T1 etc all business class services with SLAs and this is in a small home office.

[sproctor61]

Im a amateur here but have a question.  I just ordered Uverse. It will be installed on the 22nd.  We have Macs at home and have several iCloud (apple) email accounts and use the mail client on our macs.  Am I to read this as we won't be able to use our Apple email only the email address we get from our AT&T account??

Thanks in advance.

[JefferMC ACE - Wizard]

I'm sure Apple allows SMTP access on an alternate port such as:

• SMTP AUTH: Port 587
• SMTP StartTLS Port 587
• SMTP SSL Port 465
• POP Port 110
• POP SSL Port 995

You may have to change your configuration to use one of these ports and configure proper authentication settings.

[aviewer ACE - Wizard]

sproctor61 - I have apple e-mail on my mac min with accounts for sbcglobal.net, gmail.com and me.com (icloud). All went operational automatically. All I did was build the account record in preferences.

[sproctor61]

ok I feel better now, thanks for the answers guys.

Steve