pair Networks - World Class Web Hosting - E-Mail

E-Mail - SMTP Service at pair Networks

To send e-mail, you need to specify an SMTP (outgoing e-mail) server in your POP3 or IMAP e-mail reader. SMTP service for outgoing e-mail is provided on our networks by the relay.pair.com server. This is the only server on our network that may be used for SMTP traffic. The relay.pair.com server is a restricted SMTP server that can be used only if the following conditions are met:

You are a pair Networks customer in good standing.
You are sending e-mail from addresses affiliated with your accounts and services obtained from pair Networks.
You are not acting in violation of our policies (i.e. not sending out spam).
Your Internet Service Provider's mailserver is unsuitable for technical reasons.

Please do not use the relay service for:

Sending out large quantities of e-mail to multiple recipients (i.e. running a mailing list). Please consider using pairList instead.
Sending large attachments.
Sending e-mail from addresses not affiliated with your accounts and services obtained from pair Networks.
E-mail that could just as effectively be delivered through your Internet Service Providers's mailserver.
Spam.

If you meet these requirements, you may configure your e-mail reader to use this service by setting your SMTP server to:

relay.pair.com

By default, this server will reject all connections. To authorize yourself to send e-mail, you must first use your e-mail reader to check your account for new e-mail. After you have checked your e-mail, you will be authorized to send e-mail through relay.pair.com for up to 90 minutes.

All of our customers have mailboxes which are accessible through POP3 or IMAP. POP3 and IMAP are e-mail retrieval protocols and have authentication built-in. Therefore, any customer who legitimately accesses a mailbox on our servers using POP3 or IMAP is automatically authorized to send outgoing e-mail through our relay service for up to 90 minutes.

File Size Limits

Please also note that the file size limit when using relay.pair.com is 10 MB. This limit is for the message body and the sum of all attachments in their encoded state. When a file is encoded for e-mail, it can increase the size of the file significantly. With a limit of 10 MB, you may only be able to attach files around 8 MB (before encoding). The exact size of the file will depend on the contents of the file itself.

SMTP Service and Port Restrictions

Many ISPs, including America Online, EarthLink, and MSN, will not allow access to an external SMTP server. This is most commonly implemented by blocking traffic to port 25, the SMTP port. If your e-mail reader supports it, you may work around this restriction by using port 2525 instead.

If your ISP filters port 25 and your e-mail reader cannot use a different port, or if your ISP filters by some other means, you will not be able to use our SMTP service at relay.pair.com. If you are a subscriber of one of these services, please contact your ISP for assistance in using SMTP to send e-mail.

SMTP Over SSL

pair Networks also supports SMTP over SSL. If you turn this on, you must use relay.pair.com to avoid secure certificate mismatch warnings. The default port for SSL with SMTP is 465. However, most e-mail reader programs will use this port automatically, so you probably do not need to set this port yourself.

For help with your e-mail reader, please see the Using a POP/IMAP e-mail reader article.

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