So there you are excited to have purchased the latest Android, iOS, or RIM device from your local Verizon Wireless dealer, and you’re ready to set up your Gmail and company mail as described here. You go through the simple steps to set up a Gmail, Yahoo!, or Live account and are happy with how easy it is.

Then you try to set up your company email, perhaps even an email account given to you from a Tera Technologies administrator. You put in all the proper settings. POP3 or IMAP, incoming and outgoing mail server, username, password and SMTP authentication and port numbers are the settings you meticulously type into your small screen. However, when the device attempts to send outgoing mail, it simply does not work. Incoming email works just fine, but outgoing fails immediately, or hangs for several seconds.

Generally when this occurs it is because the ISP, in this case Verizon Wireless, prefers that all mail go through their SMTP servers so that they are checked for SPAM before leaving their network. When this is the case, the ISP will provide a username and password that work with a specific SMTP server that they, the ISP, provide. However, Verizon Wireless has opted to turn off and disable their outgoing SMTP server since August 2009 as explained on their webpage.

Verizon Wireless has opted to turn off and disable their outgoing SMTP server since August 2009.

This would not be a bad thing, since companies that offer email service have their own SMTP settings.  Unfortunately, Verizon Wireless adds to the problem by only allowing certain email providers to send any kind of SMTP mail at all.  This unfortunate decision to not allow your company to send mail through on your device is described on their webpage here.

The only alternative that you have available to you as a Verizon Wireless customer that wishes to send mail through your mobile device is to use an SMTP server from the list of approved email providers listed in the link above.  In other words, you will have to set up an email account with a company such as Gmail, or AT&T and use their outgoing SMTP settings to send mail.

Unfortunately there is not much that your company can do to alter this behavior.  Verizon Wireless is the only wireless company that takes these drastic measures and makes their customers jump through these hoops.

We hope that Verizon Wireless provides better solutions to their wireless customers in the future.  In the meantime, we hope this post has been informative.

Verizon Wireless is the only wireless company that takes these drastic measures and makes their customers jump through these hoops.

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