Domain Hosts and Outgoing eMail

QTC

Hi,

I have my own domain name, hosted by Namesco, which is left over from when I ran a small business. I'm keeping it on so that I can have a stable email address. Included in this is a basic email service which I can access via a browser.

The problem I've had is that I've never been able to set up an email client or mobile devices using their setup instructions, and it appears that authenticated access to the outgoing smtp server is not included in my hosting package, and they want an extra £20 per year to enable this.

Is this normal to charge extra for outgoing emails, or should I be looking to transfer my domain name to another host?

agrinnall

Outgoing emails are included in my package. Whether it's worth the extra £20 really depends on what you are paying for the rest of it, although it sounds quite steep, I'm pretty sure you could get something cheaper.

droopsnoot

I'd agree - I pay 1&1 for a basic hosting package and that includes some web space, some POP3 mailboxes and SMTP access, and probably some other stuff I haven't used. That's about £45 a year, if I recall correctly.

QTC

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

The domain renewals work out at about £10 per year, so I'd be paying £30 per year if I added the smtp access.

esuhl

I pay a registrar for my domain name, and use a free email hosting service and my ISP's SMTP server. It doesn't cost anything other than a few quid a year to register the domain.

Surely there's no need to pay for SMTP access? Every ISP should provide it -- email is a basic feature of internet connectivity.

rhysadams

Move your domain name to someone like Best Web Hosting, they charge £1.99 per month and you can send a file to your iPhone or Android device to set up the email automatically.

chunter

Years ago, most hosting companies charged extra for SMTP access. (dial-up days). In the early days of broadband I distinctly remember using the SMTP server of the broadband provider I was with. For many years Orange insisted you use their SMTP server if you were with them.

But some hosting companies decided to include it in the hosting package and so it became the norm to have it included as standard.
As IMAP became more prevalent, more space was needed on servers to hold emails, so these companies simply charge more for the size of the hosting package.
Shop around. You should be able to get decent sized hosting/email service for less than 15 quid a year.

Fightsback

A company I can highly recommend that I've dealt with, great customer service and have won multiple IPSA awards for it:

https://www.catalyst2.com/about-us/awards-2

If you want email only:

https://www.catalyst2.com/email-only

Hosting and email:

https://www.catalyst2.com/web-hosting/linux

esuhl

chunter wrote: »

Years ago, most hosting companies charged extra for SMTP access. (dial-up days). In the early days of broadband I distinctly remember using the SMTP server of the broadband provider I was with. For many years Orange insisted you use their SMTP server if you were with them.

But some hosting companies decided to include it in the hosting package and so it became the norm to have it included as standard.
As IMAP became more prevalent, more space was needed on servers to hold emails, so these companies simply charge more for the size of the hosting package.

But SMTP doesn't require any hosting or server space. You should have SMTP access included in your broadband subscription.

And for IMAP, you can use a free service like GMX.

chunter wrote: »

Shop around. You should be able to get decent sized hosting/email service for less than 15 quid a year.

What's wrong with using a free service? I can understand if you have multiple employees and need a more complex set-up, but for just a single email account, what benefit would you get from paying for a service?