Wireless E-Mail On Your Pocket PC Phone

[Monty Gibson]

If you're using your a Pocket PC Phone to successfully send AND receive email which ISP are you using?


I remember back in the day with my Jornada and OmniSky modem sled I used to connect to Verizon and didn't have any trouble whatsoever. I suppose times have changed since I've gotten out of this "hobby" and now that I am back in it. I feel so lost sometimes :puppydogeyes:. So, what's going to happen if more and more ISP's and more and more of these "free" sites just up and quit? Are we all going to have to register a domain name just so that we can pacify our wireless e-mail needs? Yikes! Woe is me... Woe is me... (or so at least that's how I feel).

[handheldplanet]

I've stuck to using the GPRS service providers themselves (ATT&T and T-Mobile). In combination with their hardware, the configuration is really simple and I get just about all the email I can eat for $20/month - alot better than the $50 that OmniSky was charging. Oh yeah, and the speed's alot faster too. I can even browse the web comfortably!

[pkwjr]

I have had the att sx56 since late October and have had no problems sending or receiving email using my home isp; Comcast.

[Cortex]

monty, im not sure i fully understand the problem your having. are you saying that using roadrunner's dialup number does not support sending email via smtp? is roadrunner part of at&t in your area? (we had roadrunner in boston originally but it got bought by at&t and we now use the at&t site to manage the account)

the at&t service provides webspace as well as i think 3 email accounts. i personally havent used them to send email but they should work. (i've finally got my my inbox working properly so i dont want to press my luck to find out).

https://memberservices.attbi.com/msws/MemberServices

mail.attbi.com for the smtp and pop3

alternatively...
for $18 bucks a year you can buy a domain name and get hosting with 3 email accounts.

i use http://www.hostcolor.com/
and got the domain through http://www.namecheap.com/

[Cortex]

opps

i see hostcolor raised their prices...

[Monty Gibson]

To clarify:

I'm using T-Mobile GPRS to surf the internet and trying to use my home ISP's email address to gain access to send and receive my regular email using my regular home email address.

When I had my Jornada and my OmniSky modem I was able to dial into Verizon (ISP/telephone company here in the U.S.) and it was not a problem sending or receiving email. That was about a year or two ago and shortly thereafter I gave up the PPC community for awhile (wanted to wait until the phone/PPC combo came around).

Now; however, I have difficulties connecting to my ISP to send my e-mails whereas before (again a year or two ago) I did not. I assumed that all was the same, that nothing had changed.

Obviously, things have changed. It would appear that most large ISP's have disabled wireless access due to spamming. That's both good and bad. Now, it forces me to use a 3rd party account. So; now, if I am traveling or at a distant conference I have to now either:

A.) Give everyone a NEW email address and tell them to just email me there or,

B.) Retrieve my email on my current ISP and send it out via a third party SMTP mail client. This will contain my original email address, but will also contain the third party address which may be confusing to some. For example: As it stands now my address is [email protected] and I receive and send email fine from home using my computer. But, using my PPCPE I will receive mail from [email protected] and it will go out via [email protected] which will have both email addresses in the message. Confusing... no?

So, that's my dilemma. I cannot SEND email via my current ISP i.e., :2gunfire: RoadRunner :pukeface:. However; I can receive email and must send it out via another SMTP server.

Hope it wasn't too confusing :sleeping:.

[Monty Gibson]

monty, im not sure i fully understand the problem your having.

i use http://www.hostcolor.com/
and got the domain through http://www.namecheap.com/

I hope that I have clarified in a previous post. I was so :bad-words: mad that I was almost speaking in tongues. I think that I am just going to go ahead and do something the wiffie and I have wanted to do for a while anyway and that's make a website... thus solving all my woes which is exactly your idea. I've thought about that for a while now but didn't realize that I would actually have to use the email side of the site... guess I was wrong and glad that it's about to come in handy.

[Cortex]

do you have a pop3 account with roadrunner? are you trying to connect by dialing over the phone line or are you using GPRS?

what happens if you setup an account in Inbox with the roadrunner settings.

it seems like roadrunner shouldnt care how you connect to their mail server. at&t doesnt seem to mind.

not to confuse things but in what folder does your email end up in Inbox when you download it.... does it end up the the ActiveSync inbox?

[pkwjr]

Monty,
Have you tried entering your email address in the area where it asks for your username in the inbox setup area. I have seen it work if you use the email format instead of just user name. Set it up like this yourname,@whatere.com or net insteade of just your username.

[Monty Gibson]

do you have a pop3 account with roadrunner? are you trying to connect by dialing over the phone line or are you using GPRS?

what happens if you setup an account in Inbox with the roadrunner settings.

it seems like roadrunner shouldnt care how you connect to their mail server. at&t doesnt seem to mind.

not to confuse things but in what folder does your email end up in Inbox when you download it.... does it end up the the ActiveSync inbox?

Yes, I have a POP3 account with RoadRunner. Yes, I am trying to connect using the GPRS setting and can receive mail fine. Connecting and receiving mail is fine, but trying to send it is a different story. They are not seeing an IP address and therefore think that I am a spammer trying to send off mail from an *anonymous* location. The mail ends up in my RoadRunner Inbox.

[Monty Gibson]

Monty,
Have you tried entering your email address in the area where it asks for your username in the inbox setup area. I have seen it work if you use the email format instead of just user name. Set it up like this yourname,@whatere.com or net insteade of just your username.

Yes, I've tried this... no dice. Thanks for the input though.

[pkwjr]

sorry could not be of more help. you do have server authentication checked also, right.

[Monty Gibson]

sorry could not be of more help. you do have server authentication checked also, right.

Sorry, had to put the potatoes on to bake :). Yes, it's checked. Still no dice. Thanks.

[pkwjr]

Monty,
Road Warner is Time Warner correct. This may help yuo out, I know this is very frustrating. IT looks like roadrunner changed a few things around lately.
http://www.cewindows.net/wce/isp.htm

[Monty Gibson]

Monty,
Road Warner is Time Warner correct. This may help yuo out, I know this is very frustrating. IT looks like roadrunner changed a few things around lately.
http://www.cewindows.net/wce/isp.htm

Yes, that's correct. Thanks for the link; however, the setup that they mention is the same exact setup I have on my Pocket PC. I don't understand it either. It just doesn't make sense.

[brntcrsp]

Monty,
what are you using for your SMTP and POP3 servers?

This is what I've found playing around with this sort of stuff: you will generally be able to retrieve your email from any POP3 server provided you have proper authentication. Now the trick is to send.

My setup to send is to use what ever ISP i'm currently on as the SMTP server. Most ISP tend to act as a relay if you are on their network, but won't relay if you are sending email from outside their network.

example:

I'm using [email protected] as my primary email account. At home I use attbi as my ISP, so in my mail client settings I have:

POP3: mail.a.com
SMTP: mail.attbi.com

the login that I provide is for my a.com address, so I can download the email without problem. Now when I send attbi sees that I'm on their network and relays my sent mail using the [email protected] as the sender address.

I Hope this makes sense. I have to run right now, and I won't be back online tonight. Hopefully someone else can clarify if I'm missing anything.

Peace -brnt

fyi: that is not my real email address.


ONE MORE THING:
If your case I would use roadrunner as your POP3 server, and your GPRS SMTP server for SMTP. that might work.

[Cortex]

monty,

i just want to make sure Inbox isnt doing something screwy like putting your downloaded mail in the ActiveSync inbox instead of POP3 inbox.
i had a problem where Inbox was treating the ActiveSync account as my primary email account. mail i downloaded showed up in the ActiveSync inbox instead of my POP3 inbox and if i tried to send an email, it wouldn't get sent until i moved it to the ActiveSync outbox.

is your downloaded email arriving in the POP3 inbox?

with regard to the mail server looking for an IP before it will receive incoming email.... have you tried selecting "Outgoing email server requires authentication"?

[Cortex]

ah -- i see someone already brought up server authenticity and it didnt help. sorry

[mpfeifer]

Monty -

I too am having a problem with Earthlink's smtp authentication server. There is a known issue that was fixed in MS PPC 2002 EUU1, but t-mobile is not certain that the fix is in there. I believe the issue is that some smtp servers respond with more then one response when trying to send and the PPC 2002 inbox could not handle it. T-mobile is looking into it but has suggested using a 3rd party inbox and not the Pocket Inbox.

Mark

[Monty Gibson]

Monty -

I too am having a problem with Earthlink's smtp authentication server. There is a known issue that was fixed in MS PPC 2002 EUU1, but t-mobile is not certain that the fix is in there. I believe the issue is that some smtp servers respond with more then one response when trying to send and the PPC 2002 inbox could not handle it. T-mobile is looking into it but has suggested using a 3rd party inbox and not the Pocket Inbox.

Mark

Mark (and to anyone else having email difficulties),

Here is what you're going to have to do. I use RoadRunner at home to check my email. My account is [email protected]. Their incoming mail server is: POP-SERVER.TAMPABAY.RR.COM. Their outgoing mail server is: SMTP-SERVER.TAMPABAY.RR.COM. I use this regularly at home to send and receive email. With a wireless device the SMTP server of course will not let you send mail due to "spamming" issues I was told and the fact that the servers cannot "see" you via an IP address. So therefore I am going to setup my Pocket PC Phone to RECEIVE email via my ROADRUNNER account from home and SEND email via my SOFTHOME account via the internet. So, read and do the following and it will work for you too. I am going to give you the exact details as to not to confuse anyone who may read this.


Step #1
I went to www.softhome.net and setup an account. I suggest you do the same or with another free online internet account. I tried MSN since MSN used to have a client that you could download for the Pocket PC. Well, I found it (after 2 hours of searching) installed it; and it didn't work. So, to www.softhome.net I went. That's step #1.

Step #2
After you obtain your account name at softhome.net (mine is [email protected]) you can then begin plugging in your data into your Pocket PC Phone.

Step #3
>Tap INBOX
>Tap SERVICES
>Tap NEW

EMAIL ADDRESS
>Enter your NEW SOFTHOME.NET email address ([email protected])
>Tap NEXT

USER INFORMATION
>YOUR NAME: Leave blank
>USER NAME: The first part of your @softhome.net email account (mine is dsnefmly as in [email protected])
>PASSWORD: The password to your softhome.net account
>Tap SAVE PASSWORD
>Tap NEXT

ACCOUNT INFORMATION
>SERVICE TYPE: POP3
>NAME: Softhome
>Tap NEXT

SERVER INFORMATION
>INCOMING MAIL (use your HOME POP3 Setting HERE): POP-SERVER.TAMPABAY.RR.COM (this is RoadRunners INCOMING mail server)
>OUTGOING MAIL (use the softhome.net setting here): MAIL.SOFTHOME.NET
>DOMAIN: Leave Blank

OPTIONS
>OUTGOING E-MAIL SERVER REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION: CHECK THIS!
>Tap NEXT
>Tap NEXT
>Tap FINISH

Erase any other account that you used previous to check for e-mail, use the Softhome.net account you've just created and enjoy. I sent a 1.6 meg 30 second movie via this setup on my Pocket PC and then received it on my wife's Pocket PC WITHOUT fail. So, again, remember your going to SEND mail via the SOFTHOME.NET account and RECEIVE mail via your standard ISP account. Hope this helps!