smtp.xtra.co.nz gone?

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#424727 6-Jan-2011 17:54

Slowgeek, my standard response to you is, move to another ISP :-)

Whilst Xtra are obviously looking to move away from smtp.xtra (if rumblings are to be believed) I do suspect this was an outage, and not a deliberate move.

If it were a deliberate move, well, it'd be worse than Bubble; at least they announced their intentions prior to changing it.

I still maintain an Xtra email address and dialup account (after all these years... they're a hangover from when I worked for them) and i've seen no correspondence around the change. I assume they would actually communicate with their customers prior to making such a substantial change as the killing-off of smtp.xtra.co.nz would be.

No signature to see here, move along...

rygrass

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#424730 6-Jan-2011 17:58

freitasm: Everyone should report this http://www.geekzone.co.nz/fault.asp

Fail i get the following message "Sorry but we only record faults submitted from New Zealand-based IP addresses. "

BlakJak

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#424731 6-Jan-2011 18:03

robbyp:
cokemaster:
Zeon:
Who are your customers? If you provide email services you should also be providing your own SMTP services... email hosting 101....

+1

All quality mail providers do that these days. There really isn't an excuse not to provide remote smtp authentication over 465/587

I have clients on Orcons iserve service, and they don't provide an SMTP server for email. They require you to use your ISPs SMTP server. Also didn't Xtra/Telecom block other SMTPs servers amd/or the port, so some people have no choice but to use Xtras SMTP server.

Standard rule across-the-board for many, many years has been that you use the SMTP service provided by the people who provide you access, and the POP3 (or IMAP or whatever) service provided by the people who host your email.

These are not necessarily the same organisations.

The move to using Authenticated SMTP is relatively recent and whilst many ISP's offer this, I don't know of many that're wholesale pushing to replace basic SMTP (which simply checks your IP is considered 'local', then accepts the message for delivery (plus or minus spam/virus checks)) with authenticated versions. This thread is one of the first indications i'd seen that Xtra were moving down that path.

"There isn't really an excuse not to provide remote smtp authentication" doesn't ring true for me, i'm afraid. Authenticated SMTP was firstly a means to get around the need to change your SMTP server each time you moved between networks - it's a relatively recent thing (roaming customers with laptops, who use dialup or wifi from various different IP networks). A variety of solutions were implemented. For example Xtra's own solution was to provide a service whereby a customer could login via user/pass on their website and from that point on, the IP they'd logged in from would be permitted to relay through a specific host for a period of time. This solution was in play as recently as 5ish years ago.

Many ISP's are running mail backbones that are well over 5 years old in basic design and 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' comes to mind. Many players are now tacking on Auth'd SMTP to provide a true roaming SMTP option. Again not aware that this is intended to become the default for _all_ SMTP when 90+ of customers probably still don't need anything more than to be seen to come from a local IP.

No signature to see here, move along...

nzbnw

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Spark NZ

#424732 6-Jan-2011 18:09

Slowgeek:

clear guide to switching to send.xtra.co.nz

In addition to the link I provided on Page 2 for @xtra.co.nz POP settings, try this for authenticating non @xtra.co.nz addresses.

http://telecom.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1547/kw/external%20email

nzbnw

tombrownzz

147 posts

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#424768 6-Jan-2011 20:11

Can anyone confirm if the problem has now been fixed? Did anyone ring telecom?

nzbnw

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#424769 6-Jan-2011 20:27

tombrownzz: Can anyone confirm if the problem has now been fixed? Did anyone ring telecom?

Just change your settings to the link I provided on Page 2 and it will work.

nzbnw

old3eyes

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#424770 6-Jan-2011 20:39

robbyp:
cokemaster:
Zeon:
Who are your customers? If you provide email services you should also be providing your own SMTP services... email hosting 101....

+1

All quality mail providers do that these days. There really isn't an excuse not to provide remote smtp authentication over 465/587

I have clients on Orcons iserve service, and they don't provide an SMTP server for email. They require you to use your ISPs SMTP server. Also didn't Xtra/Telecom block other SMTPs servers amd/or the port, so some people have no choice but to use Xtras SMTP server.

Read my post above with being on Xtra BB and Orcon email..

Regards,

Old3eyes

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raytaylor

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#424813 6-Jan-2011 22:54

1) iserve, a very well respected host makes you use your own isp's mail server.
2) last time i checked, send.xtra.co.nz only allowed up to 10 foreign email accounts to be relayed

With both of the above being the case, how is an organisation of 15 staff able to use the send.xtra.co.nz servers?

I dont think xtra will be switching off their smtp.xtra.co.nz any time soon.

The move to send.xtra.co.nz i believe was to get around the fact that smtp- often gets on antispam blocklists. So by telling people to use send- , they are authenticating and all outgoing email is authorised and not from a spambot. So the yahoo hosted send- will not get on any spam lists and therefore be more reliable.

Ray Taylor

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freitasm

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#424825 6-Jan-2011 23:18

raytaylor:

1) iserve, a very well respected host makes you use your own isp's mail server.
2) last time i checked, send.xtra.co.nz only allowed up to 10 foreign email accounts to be relayed

With both of the above being the case, how is an organisation of 15 staff able to use the send.xtra.co.nz servers?

Any organisation with 15 staff should be using an email provider. There are free services (Google Apps, Windows Live Domains), and paid services (Google Apps Enterprise, Hosted Exchange, Microsoft BPOS).

There's no excuse for companies that have a website to continue using an ISP smtp server.

Zeon

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#424832 6-Jan-2011 23:29

freitasm:
raytaylor:

1) iserve, a very well respected host makes you use your own isp's mail server.
2) last time i checked, send.xtra.co.nz only allowed up to 10 foreign email accounts to be relayed

With both of the above being the case, how is an organisation of 15 staff able to use the send.xtra.co.nz servers?

Any organisation with 15 staff should be using an email provider. There are free services (Google Apps, Windows Live Domains), and paid services (Google Apps Enterprise, Hosted Exchange, Microsoft BPOS).

There's no excuse for companies that have a website to continue using an ISP smtp server.

Exactly, and the fact of the matter is that these days more email systems are becoming web based anyway so this all becomes a moot point. Just migrated one customer from Exchange with Outlook setup to Smartermail and big IT management headache has just disappeared!

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nate

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#424860 7-Jan-2011 01:17

cokemaster:
Zeon:
Who are your customers? If you provide email services you should also be providing your own SMTP services... email hosting 101....

+1

All quality mail providers do that these days. There really isn't an excuse not to provide remote smtp authentication over 465/587

We provide SMTP services but some customers opt not to use them.

Had some zany excuses over the years (eg if I use you to send email, then you'll be able to read them!), the least zany excuse is a client who insists on sending massive attachments via email. It would timeout using our servers, so they went back to using their ISPs SMTP server.

Suits me fine, let the ISP get choked with files that really should be put in drop box.

raytaylor

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#424861 7-Jan-2011 01:18

But when you look at a small business server, over 6 years, exchange is so much cheaper than anything hosted that even comes close to comparing.
Another company I run the IT for, has 15 field staff and 4 office staff.
Whats cheaper? Small business server or Hosted exchange with limited space, limited features and a hefty cost of $380 a month + gst for shared calanders and email hosting and so much more within outlook. Oh BTW, if you look at a more realistic 1gb size mailbox for each user, that $380 rises to $470 a month for this particular small business.

And again I say Iserve - a prominant well respected email service provider (exchange pop3 retrieval) does not do smtp. This is common practice.

Short of letting exchange deliver emails to foreign servers directly, its the natural choice to use your ISP's SMTP relay.

Has anyone tried using google hosted apps, specifically calander - crap. Cant even customise the default appointment slots to anything other than half hour slots.
A week ago I presented two options to an orthodontist - hosted exchange or google apps. He went with hosted exchange only because it was cheaper than purchasing exchange, and google calander would only create appointments by default that were half an hour long where as outlook could by 10 or 20 mins.

I am all for cloud computing - just not when its web interface based.

Ray Taylor

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ptinson

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#424879 7-Jan-2011 07:34

We currently don't have a plan to turn off smtp.xtra.co.nz but don't be surprised if we make an effort to get people using send.xtra.co.nz instead.

send.xtra.co.nz was put in place instead of migrating smtp.xtra.co.nz to yahoo because of precisely the reasons and issues people are airing here, not to delineate auth'd vs non auth'd mail.
Remember that smtp.xtra is a consumer service not a SME one, it was used as one though and that has made the waters more murky for sure.

This will have been an incident, Telecom is currently in brown out over xmas so there would not be any major changes like this going on.

If we make any major changes, and shutting down smtp.xtra is major, we would not do it in silence. That would be a very bad move for us.

Regards

Paul

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quickymart

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#424880 7-Jan-2011 07:36

Thanks for taking the time to explain that Paul. I was just a bit baffled as to why it wasn't working yesterday and thought the plug might have been pulled on it or something.

tombrownzz

147 posts

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#424972 7-Jan-2011 14:43

ptinson: We currently don't have a plan to turn off smtp.xtra.co.nz but don't be surprised if we make an effort to get people using send.xtra.co.nz instead.

send.xtra.co.nz was put in place instead of migrating smtp.xtra.co.nz to yahoo because of precisely the reasons and issues people are airing here, not to delineate auth'd vs non auth'd mail.
Remember that smtp.xtra is a consumer service not a SME one, it was used as one though and that has made the waters more murky for sure.

This will have been an incident, Telecom is currently in brown out over xmas so there would not be any major changes like this going on.

If we make any major changes, and shutting down smtp.xtra is major, we would not do it in silence. That would be a very bad move for us.

Regards

Paul

So can you confirm the problem has now been fixed?

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