it appears that microsoft is
it appears that microsoft is actively blocking attbi email from hotmail. i attempted to send two emails to hotmail addresses using the attbi smtp server. this is what the server said:
This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason:
Your message was not delivered because the destination computer was
not reachable within the allowed queue period. The amount of time
a message is queued before it is returned depends on local configura-
tion parameters.
Most likely there is a network problem that prevented delivery, but
it is also possible that the computer is turned off, or does not
have a mail system running right now.
Your message was not delivered within 0 days and 1 hours.
Host hotmail.com is not responding.
The following recipients did not receive this message:
someone@hotmail.com
it looks like hotmail has blacklisted attbi. i chatted with an at&t tech support guy and all he would say is, “At this time there is a problem with sending emails to Hotmail addresses. The problems [sic] has been identified and we are working to get it resolved.” i asked him if at&t would notify users when the problem was resolved. he said that at&t would not. he said the best i could do would be to check back with tech support at a later date.
it’s unfortunate that at&t tech support sucks so badly. they really are a monopoly as far as broadband access is concerned in many geographic areas. they continue to raise their rates, yet their service and support has largely remained unchanged. at&t should have notified their users as soon as this problem was identified. as far as i can tell, they have made no attempt at all to notify their users of the problem.
considering the number of people that i, alone, know with hotmail addresses, the severity of this problem is far from trivial. i don’t know the specific numbers, but i have to imagine that the number of emails going undelivered must be enormous considering the number of attbi and hotmail users.
oh well, at least all of this gave me some motivation to finally get sendmail working again on my os x box.
