Why do so few mail providers support Port 587?

Thu Feb 24 22:02:03 UTC 2005



andrew2 at one.net wrote:

>owner-nanog at merit.edu wrote:
>  
>
>>On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:08:42 EST, Nils Ketelsen said:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 09:00:11PM -0500, Sean Donelan wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>What can be done to encourage universities and other mail providers
>>>>with large roaming user populations to support RFC2476/Port 587?
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Give a good reason. That is still the missing part.
>>>      
>>>
>>If you're a roaming user from that provider, and you're at
>>some other site that blocks or hijacks port 25, you can still send
>>mail by tossing it to your main provider's 587.   If that's not a
>>good enough reason to motivate the provider to support it, nothing
>>will (except maybe when the users show up en masse with pitchforks
>>and other implements of destruction...)
>>    
>>
>
>There seem to be many who feel there is no overwhelming reason to
>support 587.  I can certainly see that point of view, but I guess my
>question is what reasons do those of you with that viewpoint have *not*
>to implement it?  I just don't see the harm in either configuring your
>MTA to listen on an extra port, or just forward port 587 to 25 at the
>network level.  Other than a few man-hours for implementation what are
>the added costs/risks that make you so reluctant?  What am I missing?
>
>Andrew
>
>  
>
What man hours? Thats the default setup for most sendmails!