How do I get email from my domain host without spending more $$?

May 6, 2005 1:23 PM

I have a domain name "x" hosted by Cedant and get lots of email there. I also have qwest.net dsl service at home. I want to get my domain name email in outlook express at home. I know to do this I need access to a POP3 server from Qwest.net (right?). Qwest wants an extra $20 a month over the $50 I pay for DSL for this (thieves!) How can I get the mail from my domain host to my outlook express for free (ie is there a free POP3 server or something that allows me to bypass Qwest and the $20 shakedown?)
posted by limitedpie to computers & internet (18 answers total)

Are you certain Cedant does not come with pop3?
posted by jikel_morten at 1:28 PM on May 6, 2005

According to the Cedant web site, all web hosting plans include at least 5 POP/Web email Accounts. If you already have an email account that you can access via the web there, it's probably a simple matter of setting up Outlook to work with it. This page seems to have links describing how to set up your email accounts.
posted by SteveInMaine at 1:28 PM on May 6, 2005

Perhaps you're confused? You don't need a POP3 server from Qwest, you need to access your domain host's POP3 server via Qwest DSL.

Your domain host ought to be providing you with POP3 (or IMAP) for email@your-domain. In any reasonable setup, the server should be at (or aliased to) mail.your-domain.tld. So you'd just point Outlook Express at that address, and use ports 110 and 25.

You can do this from qwest's DSL unless qwest is blocking port 25, as sometimes happen to frustrate spammers. Is qwest's $20 fee just for un-blocking port 25? If so, tell them they're thieves and to go to hell. But ask, just explain you want nothing from them other than unblocked ports, not pop3 service. I wonder if Qwest thinks you want domain hosting from them, and that's why they cited the $20/month fee?

If Qwest won't unblock the port, explain that this is happening to your domain host, and ask them to open an alternative outgoing mail port -- this is a standard workaround to ISPs that block port 25 to frustrate spammers. Then just point Outlook express at the alternative port.
posted by orthogonality at 1:34 PM on May 6, 2005

OK. I am definitely confused! Here is what I am sure of: Qwest tells me our DSL does *not* come with any email at all unless we pay another $20 a month. Cedant (on my last call with them-- but I am calling them back now to ask again and try to get it clarified) says that they will forward the domain email to any existing email account. But, since we don't have an existing email (because of the Qwest.net thing) I am unsure what to do! I am woefully lame when it comes to all things tech so I may have phrased my original question incorrectly.
posted by limitedpie at 1:42 PM on May 6, 2005

Run it through a gmail account. Get all the mail forwarded to it, then forward your gmail account to your isp account and set that account up in Outlook Express. This has the added benefit of filtering out most of the spam as well. Let me know if you need a gmail account.
posted by kenchie at 1:45 PM on May 6, 2005

When you say you get lots of email at Cendant, how do you access it now? If you currently use your browser to do it, you just need to set up outlook express to get to the same place. Qwest really doesn't have anything to with it.

By the way, you are not totally lame, just learning ;)
posted by SteveInMaine at 1:50 PM on May 6, 2005

Go into your outlook express account settings and set up a new account.

Here's the info directly from cedant:
Email clients can ask for the same information in lots of different ways. But every email client requires the same information in order to work. Here is the general information that an email client will need.

Mailbox
The mailbox is the full email address of the email account that you want to check. So if you want to check your mail at [e-mail], then the mailbox name would be [e-mail]. This can be called several different things: "mailbox", "account", "user name", etc.. But these are all names for the same piece of information.

Incoming mail server
There are two things to specify here. The first is the type of incoming mail server--this is POP3.

The second thing to specify is the name of the incoming mail server.

mail.abc.com

Outgoing mail server
Your outgoing mail server--also called the SMTP server--will be the one assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Contact your ISP for the name of their SMTP server.

Should you find that your ISP will not provide you with this information or that they don't support SMTP servers, contact [e-mail] for other alternatives.

That last part may be your issue...I'm not sure what they would offer you as far as alternatives go.
posted by jikel_morten at 1:51 PM on May 6, 2005

Let me second SteveInMaine. All of us had to learn how to do this.

Do you know any teenagers? They seem to be born with this sort of knowledge.
posted by bh at 4:22 PM on May 6, 2005

SteveinMaine: I used speakeasy.net for my DSL provider before and just had to switch to qwest (unfortunately.) So, with speakeasy, on the Incoming mail server question in the new account wizard in Outlook Express I had "mail.speakeasy.net" and at Cedant I had them forward the mail to "[e-mail]." Cedant will send the mail to any email address I give them. The problem is qwest won't give us an email address unless we pay $70 ($50 gets you DSL, $70 gets you DSL with an email account.) I guess I could have speakeasy send the mail to a gmail acct, but I am sort of hooked on outlook express. So is there a way to get free email accessible by outlook express (versus a web based email thing like gmail) if I have no email address at all from my ISP?

jikel_morten: from my last call with Cedant they aren't providing alternatives if I have no ISP email.
posted by limitedpie at 4:29 PM on May 6, 2005

I have a domain at cedant, too. You should be able to go into Outlook Express to read the mail from the Cedant server, without doing anything special with Qwest.

Look for instructions for regular Outlook here.

Or look at the general instructions here.

Basically, you need to tell Outlook the name of the server (mail.yourdomain.com) and the name of your email account ([e-mail]) and once you give it your password you should be all set to read your email!

For sending email it may be a bit trickier if Qwest is blocking outgoing email ports (which SBC just started doing) to reduce spam. Outlook will have a separate setting for outgoing email server, also known as an SMTP server. Qwest should be able to provide a server to use for this, otherwise Cedant can provide it.

If you have access to another working email account, you might want to try contacting Cedant support that way - they are usually very prompt to respond.
posted by babar at 4:35 PM on May 6, 2005

Outgoing mail server
Your outgoing mail server--also called the SMTP server--will be the one assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Contact your ISP for the name of their SMTP server.

dude, that's absolute bunk. I would recommend switching to another host. You will have A LOT of trouble trying to send SMTP mail through a SMTP server that is not hosting the domain in question.

i once had a hosting service like this and it was a constant annoyance.
posted by fishfucker at 5:12 PM on May 6, 2005

You will have A LOT of trouble trying to send SMTP mail through a SMTP server that is not hosting the domain in question.

Only because a lot of them won't let you do it, but many will. Try it to see if it works. If not, get a fastmail.fm account and use it to send your mail.
posted by kindall at 5:24 PM on May 6, 2005

Oh Jesus. If Cedant runs a mail server for incoming mail but expects you to piggy-back on your ISP for outgoing, they're not real domain hosts. Whole point of having a domain is to not be tied to your ISP.

Get a better host, and make sure you tell Cedant why you're leaving.
posted by orthogonality at 1:20 AM on May 7, 2005

I would give this a try:

Set your incoming mail server (POP3) to:

mail.yourdomain.tld (i.e. if your domain is ensignricky.com, set it to mail.ensignricky.com)

Set your outgoing mail server (SMTP) to:

pop.SOMETHING.qwest.net

You'll want to check this link:

http://www.qwest.net/nav4/acct_tools/basic_roaming.html

to see what the SOMETHING is, depending on where you are located. (i.e. if you are in Omaha, you'd set it to pop.omah.qwest.net).

I could be wrong, but I'm not sure that it would be worth Qwest's time to restrict access to their SMTP servers based on whether you are paying for email services or not. I'm guessing that the extra $20 per month gets you POP3 accounts, and that every qwest.net subscriber probably is allowed access to their SMTP servers.

Give it a shot and see if it works. If not, post the error messages you get and we can try something different.
posted by ensign_ricky at 8:46 AM on May 7, 2005

I guess I could have speakeasy send the mail to a gmail acct, but I am sort of hooked on outlook express.

gmail works fine with outlook express.
posted by quonsar at 9:47 PM on May 7, 2005

If you want an IMAP server (if you keep your email on the server AND you want folders, you need this), check out pobox.com. $50/yr would take care of you there.
posted by mosch at 1:50 AM on May 8, 2005

Oh Jesus. If Cedant runs a mail server for incoming mail but expects you to piggy-back on your ISP for outgoing, they're not real domain hosts. Whole point of having a domain is to not be tied to your ISP.

Get a better host, and make sure you tell Cedant why you're leaving.

Actually, cedant does provide SMTP if you ask. But many ISPs block access to external SMTP servers, so I think they want you to try using your ISP SMTP server first. And any ISP that blocks outgoing email from other domains and blocks access to external SMTP servers is horrible, but I've never experienced any that do that.
posted by babar at 1:11 PM on May 8, 2005

Wow! It works! Thanks to all the good answers here. I ended up using Cedant for incoming and the SMTP (outgoing) which Qwest did indeed block. Thanks for all the great answers, suggestions and pointers: askmetafilter saves the day for me again!
posted by limitedpie at 2:26 PM on May 9, 2005