Who's my ISP?

[voice-]

My internet connection is a weird one.


X
___________________________________________



______
n| |n
n| |n
n| |n
h| |c
n| |n
n| |n
n| |n
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This illustrates my street. To get broadband we had to draw the line to the X. It ends with a dish, and we connect through the C. The rest of the street is connected with a LAN that works quite well. Each N is a neighbour, and the H is my home.

Now to the point. There is one company we deal with, but they are technically not our ISP, they hire others, and they tend to change our ISP from time to time. This is inconvenient to me, as I have no idea what to put as SMTP when sending mails.

So, in the pure intrest of getting a hold of an SMTP adress that works, how can I figure out who's my ISP?

[Paul Komski]

The SMTP setup used by mail servers does not work in a constant manner. For some, particularly those owned by ISPs, you have to be using their connection to use their mail server. Others dont mind if you are connected through another ISP and others (mostly) will want you to log-on first (just as you would do to collect mail) in order to send mail through their servers when you are not using them as the ISP. There is usually an "advanced" option to enable this smtp logon in most mail clients.

If you have functioning mail protocols and the actual ISP changes without informing you of a need to update/change the settings, it must be likely that the settings will still work.

eg
When I am online here in Ireland I can only use the smtp of my ISP; the other irish smtp servers are blocked - however my sister can user her own English based ISP to send her mails from here - as long as she logs on to the smtp server first.

[classicsoftware]

Until you settle the problem, use web-mail like yahoo until they get themselves under control....

[Paul Komski]

Webmail is one way; another is to get yourself an independent free pop mail provider such as HotPOP (http://www.hotpop.com/index.jsp). To use their SMTP (rather than your ISP's) you will need to "Use POP Authentication" prior to sending mails.

The freeness is paid for by very occasional product-related emails (less than half a dozen a year in my experience). Using their server is not as immediate as using one's ISP's one but it does give one independently based pop (and smtp) mail.

[juniper]

Personaly I would just call the ISP that is listed on your bill and tell them you want the SMTP information or your switching providers. oh a whois on your IP address will tell you the ISP that owns it if you want to take it that route but I really think the one listed on the bill is who you want to talk to hehe.