quote:

domains owned by att.net

A list of the consumer email domains hosted by AT&T, as best I can tell, as of August 2021.
Domains:

ameritech.net
att.net
bellsouth.net
currently.com
flash.net
nvbell.net
pacbell.net
prodigy.net
sbcglobal.net
snet.net
swbell.net
wans.net
worldnet.att.net

Link

Also when searching there are several posts back through May of this year where other BBS were blocked from sending emails, one a Star Trek BBS that finally got resolved.

Thanks for solving this mystery Para.

Sorry for the tardy follow-up. I've been away for a while.

TL;DR: IMO: If you value your email at all: Do not ever use "AT&T" for email services.[6]

Ok, about the thing that calls itself "AT&T" [1] these days...

They are, IMO & IME, unquestionably the absolute worst TelCom [2] provider on the planet. I had so many problems [3] with them when I was employed in an I.T. position I swore I'd never voluntarily use another "AT&T" product ever again.

AT&T Mobility, their wireless service, I am told isn't as bad as their various other services. I don't know and I'm disinclined to test it. [4]

As for their email services: They appear to have achieved the improbable: Beat Microsoft for unreliable email [5]. They've had my home email server and both the virtual hosted email servers I manage blocked for a couple years.

Used to be you could ask them for absolution and, much to my surprise, it'd often work. Apparently not anymore. I've requested relief from them for each server several times. The servers never get de-listed. I never get an answer.

I honestly suspect nobody's home.

They appear to be running their own, private block list. All three of my blocked servers are listed on no other blocklists, anywhere.

All three of my email servers are professionally installed, configured, and maintained. They all have static IPs, forward and reverse DNS records, and SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. One of the three, my home server, even has a crytographically-signed DNS zone file. You honestly can't do any better than that from an email server management perspective. None of the three has ever, ever been used for spam or any other abuse email.

Bottom line: In my opinion: If you value your email at all: Do not ever use "AT&T" for email services.[6]

Footnotes:

[1] Long story short: The thing that now calls itself "AT&T" is not your daddy's AT&T (which was actually a pretty damn good TelCom provider, one of the best in the world, in its time). Most of its property and its name was purchased by SBC in 2005.

[2] I worked with numerous local, national, and international TelCom providers during my 25+ years in I.T.

[3] They screwed up our contracts at my employer so badly they assessed themselves an $8,000+ penalty. Meanwhile, they were also making a hash of my home phone and DSL services.

[4] One of my best friends is obliged to use AT&T Mobility for his Internet connectivity in the north woods, as they have the only reliable coverage up there. He does not like them.

[5] There was a time when any email admin who new what he was about would tell you "If you value your email: Don't use a Microsoft service." They were absolutely horrible. I still wouldn't, but I'd use them before "AT&T" now.

[6] "AT&T" email includes at least:

• ameritech.net
  
• att.net
  
• bellsouth.net
  
• currently.com
  
• flash.net
  
• nvbell.net
  
• pacbell.net
  
• prodigy.net
  
• sbcglobal.net
  
• snet.net
  
• swbell.net
  
• wans.net
  
• worldnet.att.net

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
I've been away for a while.

Good to have you back. I missed your technical opinion on things.

I'll confirm that AT&T (including the above list), Yahoo!, AOL and Hotmail will result in issues when it comes to email deliverability.

They will routinely block or slow the delivery of emails sent by a website (transactional emails) and bulk email services. Usually, the bulk marketing emails go through; the big issue is the transactional emails coming from a website.

A transactional email is something like a SIGForum notification about a new post in a thread or an email when you purchase from a small or medium-sized business on a website.

The services mentioned above are the worst when it comes to slowing delivery or blocking those emails, even when the DNS settings are perfect and validation is good to go. If they put the IP address of the sending service on a blacklist, it takes a bit of time to clean that up. The issues will come and go.

The problem can be solved by emailing the abuse@ addresses and requesting they fix it. They fix it, and the problem occurs again a month or two later.

quote:

If you value your email at all: Do not ever use "AT&T" for email services.

This!!!!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

They appear to be running their own, private block list. All three of my blocked servers are listed on no other blocklists, anywhere.

All emails from Sigforum.com are blocked. I've sent emails to AT&T asking them to unblock Sigforum and never get a response or resolution. I ended up changing my email to a Gmail account so I could get new post notifications.

Some of the things AT&T have done are criminal.
Several years back, I received a text message for an unknown number. All I did was READ the message and was automatically billed $9.95 with a recurring $9.95 per month for signing up for "Joke of the Day". Turned out, it was from a 3rd party company AT&T was in bed with. When I first discovered the charges, I told them to either remove the charges or I would be dropping my service and contacting an attorney. Several years later, AT&T ended up settling a lawsuit as a result of the scam. I'm sure the money they made from this was far more than the settlement. This is just one shady example.


On a funny side note, on June 22, 2016, I was setting up a couple of additional email addresses. On a lark, I checked to see if Donald.J.Trump@att.net was available. It was and I got it and sent myself a test email. At some point after that, at&t locked me out of that email address.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
Some of the things AT&T have done are criminal.
Several years back, I received a text message for an unknown number. All I did was READ the message and was automatically billed $9.95 with a recurring $9.95 per month for signing up for "Joke of the Day". Turned out, it was from a 3rd party company AT&T was in bed with.

BTDT, only it wasn't text messages. We'd just have charges from random services start showing up on our bills.

I'd call up and protest we'd never signed up for whatever, eventually persuade them to cancel the crap and credit us, then it'd happen again.

About the Nth time this happened I told them "You will make this stop, because I'm not going to continue going round and round with you on these every month or so." "There's no way for us to do that," was the reply. Escalated to a supervisor. Got the same response. Told them: "I said I wasn't doing this with you anymore and I meant it. Going forward: Any such charges that appear on our bills will be deducted and we'll pay the balance." "You can't do that," they said. "Watch me now." "Then we'll..." <vague threats of dinging our credit, suspending our phone service, etc.> "If you do any of that we'll see you in court. MAKE IT STOP!"

Funny thing: It stopped. Just like that. Turned out they could do it.

We hates "AT&T," we does.