PLDT SMTP server. – Everything is Broken

Man this is the best kept secret in the entire telecoms industry … I've been trying to send email through PLDT's SMTP servers as I'm a broadband customer of theirs, and my normal SMTP server wasn't working. I needed to get an email out, and I was getting a little desperate.

So apparently the published SMTP servers don't actually work. Yay! If you try looking on the PLDT website, where you might expect to see this kind of useful information … well just don't bother. You get seasick pretty quickly from all the flash whoopiness, and the dead ends and 404 start to piss you off after a while. So then you do a few google searches and come up with a couple of published servers, which basically don't work: smtp.info.com.ph and smtp.pldtdsl.net

So, eventually I cracked and went to the Customer Hotline. After re-phrasing my question several thousand times until I was understood, the answer was … smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net , using port 587. Which actually works.

Port 587, yes of course, why didn't I guess that one.

My official email to PLDT on the same issue..
Anyone having this same problem will find this via google.

To: PLDT Generic customer email service
CC: Horace A. Lavides – PLDT Senior Manager ; Gary Dujali – PLDT MyDSL head ; Myla Villanueva – Senior Product Manager

To whom it may concern,

I would want to bring your attention to a PLDT DSL Service issue that we are to this day currently experiencing. Email which is an important communication tool for any company including our own has been paralyzed due to a server or service called smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net. SMTPDSL4 is a smart host used to route email from our servers to the rest of the world – in short if this route is not active we are not able to send email out.

We have used the service to relay our company emails via our PLDT Business DSL line. The problem stemmed a few days ago when the server without warning went down and all our emails got rejected. This problem had been persisting and I have tried to speak with our PLDT Account manager which was helpful in giving me a few consolatary words afterwhich has professionally evaded my calls. My attempts to contact her manager have also been unanswered.

I finally got hold of somebody from technical named Johncell Ilaw who has explained to me that they are trying to prevent an open relay which means that to some degree the server was compromised and is being used to SPAM other users. We have been given instructions on how to get the service running again. To this moment, there is no advisory of any sort telling your loyal home and business customers of the policy to close off the relay or if the service hits an interruption.

PLDT spends millions of pesos in promotional products in mass media but it takes just one bad experience like this to really emphasize the uncaring nature and arrogance of the country’s largest telco. Is it too much to ask to properly communicate to your customers – This could have been resolved by sending a simple email to users that something needs to be done to solve a problem however It all comes back to the careless and arrogant attitude of whoever is responsible for these decisions.

On my part, I have switched our path out to skyinet which is another telco that we have an account with and this has solved our immediate problem. I am very dissapointed with PLDT. Its marketting personnel who are the friendliest people on Earth and will promise you the world but when the shit hits the fan are the hardest to find. Its technical people for critical services such as email cannot be contacted directly because they don’t have a direct line which is a complete joke given that they are working for the people who do up the lines. You force your business customers to contact 177 which is a shared business and residential line and have them transferred from one joke to another who cannot give any answers but to wait for 24 hours and after 24 hours – nothing happens. This is the height of poor customer service which in plain parlance is called Indifference to customers.

My letter may be ignored and probably be joined with the millions of customers that have written you to give a piece of their mind. Understand that the efforts of these internal PLDT individuals are just contributing to the decline of PLDT. I do not judge the company as a whole but the rotten eggs and their lack of process in PLDT creates a huge problem for consumers and business alike. To put it plainly, if I was to go a pull the power to your office and suddenly bring back the power then turn it off randomly in the next 10 minutes – what would PLDT feel. That is what you are doing to your customers.

Google: smtp port for pldtdsl
This is the first hit:
http://www.eligio.org/wtf-pldt-dsl-block-port-25.html

Kindly read it – this is what me and your millions of customers think.

For every one of this = millions of pesos in advertising nullified.

Also this:

https://play.datalude.com/blog/2009/06/pldt-smtp-server/

“Man this is the best kept secret in the entire telecoms industry … I’ve been trying to send email through PLDT’s SMTP servers as I’m a broadband customer of theirs, and my normal SMTP server wasn’t working. I needed to get an email out, and I was getting a little desperate.”

I hope some attention to address these concerns gets started as this is a serious problem.

Regards,
[email protected]

6 thoughts on “PLDT SMTP server.”

Tirso Paris

June 20, 2009 at 21:23

Thanks a lot! I also had the same problem sending out emails. Now I'm using smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net using port 587 and it works!!

Out of frustration, I also found out from various searches that smtpdsl.pldtdsl.net using the default port (25) also works.
David Bodycombe

October 2, 2009 at 23:53

Thank you! I had the same problem and tried the same old web pages you found. Thanks for letting us know. David
banicmanic

June 10, 2011 at 11:07

smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net port 587 does not work now!!

Any alternative outgoing mail servers and port that work?
admin

June 11, 2011 at 14:51

I just checked it and it still seems to be working … but of course it will only work if you're using PLDT, and probably only with the home broadband … is that what you're using? You can check it with telnet from a command prompt. i.e.

>> telnet smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net 587 Trying 210.213.253.193... Connected to smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net. Escape character is '^]'. 220 dsl4.pldtdsl.net ESMTP

If you get something like these messages then its all working OK. If you don't, then something is blocking you. Try checking your personal firewall, then the firewall in your router to see if there are rules which are stopping traffic on port 587
Josef K

July 19, 2011 at 14:22

My official email to PLDT on the same issue..
Anyone having this same problem will find this via google.

To: PLDT Generic customer email service
CC: Horace A. Lavides – PLDT Senior Manager ; Gary Dujali – PLDT MyDSL head ; Myla Villanueva – Senior Product Manager

To whom it may concern,

I would want to bring your attention to a PLDT DSL Service issue that we are to this day currently experiencing. Email which is an important communication tool for any company including our own has been paralyzed due to a server or service called smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net. SMTPDSL4 is a smart host used to route email from our servers to the rest of the world – in short if this route is not active we are not able to send email out.

We have used the service to relay our company emails via our PLDT Business DSL line. The problem stemmed a few days ago when the server without warning went down and all our emails got rejected. This problem had been persisting and I have tried to speak with our PLDT Account manager which was helpful in giving me a few consolatary words afterwhich has professionally evaded my calls. My attempts to contact her manager have also been unanswered.

I finally got hold of somebody from technical named Johncell Ilaw who has explained to me that they are trying to prevent an open relay which means that to some degree the server was compromised and is being used to SPAM other users. We have been given instructions on how to get the service running again. To this moment, there is no advisory of any sort telling your loyal home and business customers of the policy to close off the relay or if the service hits an interruption.

PLDT spends millions of pesos in promotional products in mass media but it takes just one bad experience like this to really emphasize the uncaring nature and arrogance of the country’s largest telco. Is it too much to ask to properly communicate to your customers – This could have been resolved by sending a simple email to users that something needs to be done to solve a problem however It all comes back to the careless and arrogant attitude of whoever is responsible for these decisions.

On my part, I have switched our path out to skyinet which is another telco that we have an account with and this has solved our immediate problem. I am very dissapointed with PLDT. Its marketting personnel who are the friendliest people on Earth and will promise you the world but when the shit hits the fan are the hardest to find. Its technical people for critical services such as email cannot be contacted directly because they don’t have a direct line which is a complete joke given that they are working for the people who do up the lines. You force your business customers to contact 177 which is a shared business and residential line and have them transferred from one joke to another who cannot give any answers but to wait for 24 hours and after 24 hours – nothing happens. This is the height of poor customer service which in plain parlance is called Indifference to customers.

My letter may be ignored and probably be joined with the millions of customers that have written you to give a piece of their mind. Understand that the efforts of these internal PLDT individuals are just contributing to the decline of PLDT. I do not judge the company as a whole but the rotten eggs and their lack of process in PLDT creates a huge problem for consumers and business alike. To put it plainly, if I was to go a pull the power to your office and suddenly bring back the power then turn it off randomly in the next 10 minutes – what would PLDT feel. That is what you are doing to your customers.

Google: smtp port for pldtdsl
This is the first hit:
http://www.eligio.org/wtf-pldt-dsl-block-port-25.html

Kindly read it – this is what me and your millions of customers think.

For every one of this = millions of pesos in advertising nullified.

Also this:

https://play.datalude.com/blog/2009/06/pldt-smtp-server/

“Man this is the best kept secret in the entire telecoms industry … I’ve been trying to send email through PLDT’s SMTP servers as I’m a broadband customer of theirs, and my normal SMTP server wasn’t working. I needed to get an email out, and I was getting a little desperate.”

I hope some attention to address these concerns gets started as this is a serious problem.

Regards,
[email protected]
Gilbert Mandane

August 14, 2015 at 09:26

Always got this error on our mail server when I sent email to PLDT one of email address is [email protected]
smtpdsl5.pldtdsl.net: Bad SMTP prompt at the host

6 thoughts on “PLDT SMTP server.”

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