I’ve noted several stories lately about Verizon’s e-mail not functioning properly, but I’ve run into it myself for the first time today. I got a bounced message from my e-mail server indicating that Verizon’s mail relay has been down.

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at kelvin.k2.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.<xxxxxxxx@verizon.net>
Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1)
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long.

Apparently they are blocking IP addresses from connecting to their relay, probably based on some lame reverse lookup. How does this affect me? Well, my e-mail server is hosted by a multi-national company. It’s highly likely that the IP address of my e-mail server shows up as being assigned to a foreign company and is thus blocked. That stinks.

I can’t complain too much about Verizon because I use their DSL service at my home, but seriously, those of you who use Verizon need to move your e-mail elsewhere. They are the first major company to out-and-out block connections based on IP origination and they have no plans to change this policy. Those of you who are stuck, should get a Yahoo, Hotmail, GMail or similar account if you have no other choices. GMail is particularly good because of the large storage space and the POP3 access.