Comcast: Avoid.

[dsrtao]

It appears that after 10 years of running my own mail server and being responsible for my own mail, Comcast has decided to shut down inbound port 25 sometime this morning.

Mail to tao.merseine.nu is down.

If this is the case, I will stop being a Comcast customer as soon as possible. I did not sign up with Comcast: I signed up with MediaOne. AT&T bought them. Then Comcast bought the cable service from AT&T. Over time, the prices went up, the bandwidth went up, and the quality of customer support went down.

My choices are Verizon FIOS and RCN. VZ would be OK for network access, but I dislike their TV offering, and I don't want them ripping out my copper. Looks like RCN.

[later] After talking to four people at Comcast for 32 minutes, they claim that I am a spammer. How stopping inbound email will stop me from spamming I do not know. My blood pressure is much, much, much too high.

Comments

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

With RCN, I am able to receive mail on my server. They block outbound port 25 outside their network, requiring you to smarthost through their server. They do block port 80 inbound, if you care. They *tell* me that paying the extra $20 for the static IP comes with completely unblocked ports.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

They have done so, and have been doing so. Regardless of what the FCC might do to them for it.

RCN does not, to my knowledge, if you pay for static IP. It isn't much, and you can bargain with them for lower prices. Bargain hard. Talk to nudgeprincess about our setup, which is RCN Static IP. We get no other services from RCN.

[feoh.livejournal.com]

Yup. Comcast are a bunch of forkheads.

What's worse is that apparently it depends on which cable head end you're attached to as to whether they block you or not:
---
cm65c-2a0:/Applications cpatti$ nc -v mail.feoh.org 25
DNS fwd/rev mismatch: mail.feoh.org != c-65-96-182-200.hsd1.ma.comcast.net
mail.feoh.org [65.96.182.200] 25 (smtp) open
220 mail.feoh.org ESMTP Postfix (2.2.10) ready to puke on your shoes.
quit
221 Bye

My domain appears to still be mail-able.

I've been thinking of ditching the admin hassle and switching to Google apps for domains anyway though :)

[dsrtao]

I can't bring myself to trust anyone else to handle my mail.

[feoh.livejournal.com]

I can totally understand that.

For me, it's a much easier decision.

Personally, I end up using my domain's mail capabilities once in a blue moon. Most of my personal traffic has switched to Gmail anyway.

I used to be wary of the privacy aspects, but in truth anything you send over the internet in any form is shouting into a crowded room, so why bother?

If I need to dissuade the casual peeping tom I can use S/MIME or worst case GPS.

[robertdfeinman.livejournal.com]

Verizon blocks incoming port 80 as well unless you buy a business contract.

What ever happened to the concept of a common carrier who is not supposed to examine the data flowing through its "pipes"?

AT&T is making noises about blocking "copyrighted" content as well. The next step is Chinese-style censorship. An open internet is just too dangerous to be left in the hands of the public.

[dsrtao]

Common carrier is only pled when they want monopoly right of way.