Contacts re email deliverability problem to tmomail.net?
Hi, folks, A client of mine is having trouble delivering (legitimate) email to tmomail.net, and I'm having trouble finding the right contact. (e.g. postmaster bounced). I've verified the legitimate nature of the email (only user-initiated, and nothing more), the valid SPF, A, PTR, and MX records, etc. We're also having no trouble sending the equivalent messages to the email-to-SMS gateways at ATT Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, etc. Any suggestions for the best points of contact at T-Mobile USA (tmomail.net)? thanks! Graham Freeman graham.freeman@cernio.com (Email/Jabber/SIP) +1 415 462 2991 (office)
On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Graham Freeman <jahiel@gmail.com> wrote:
A client of mine is having trouble delivering (legitimate) email to tmomail.net, and I'm having trouble finding the right contact.
I just tested, and was able to successfully send an email to my Tmobile address [myphone#]@tmomail.net. Are you getting bounces / failures back that are of any use? Also FWIW (and sanity check) any reason why your client wants to use email-to-SMS, rather than just SMS. From what I understand email-to-sms isn't the best platform for getting messages to mobile devices but I may be missing some client-specific visibility. --Jaren
On 14 May 10, at 17:23 , Jaren Angerbauer wrote:
I just tested, and was able to successfully send an email to my Tmobile address [myphone#]@tmomail.net. Are you getting bounces / failures back that are of any use? Also FWIW (and sanity check) any reason why your client wants to use email-to-SMS, rather than just SMS. From what I understand email-to-sms isn't the best platform for getting messages to mobile devices but I may be missing some client-specific visibility.
Hi, Jaren, Delivering SMS-to-SMS would be impractical and prohibitively expensive. This is for an iPhone messaging app that optionally delivers messages to SMS recipients for free. The business model depends on email-to-SMS gateways. Like you, we were able to deliver messages in low volumes, but as the app became increasingly popular (at one point in the Top 20 in the App Store) the volume exceeded a opaque-to-us rate limit at Tmobile, but not at other mobile providers - some of whom we're sending many more messages than we ever tried to deliver to Tmobile. Two examples out of thousands:
Apr 30 23:52:52 pomelo.borange.com postfix/error[17836]: [ID 197553 mail.info] D44451D9570: to=<[xxxxxxxxxx]@tmomail.net>, relay=none, delay=80196, delays=80195/0.18/0/0, dsn=4.0.0, status=deferred (delivery temporarily suspended: host mm3.tmomail.net[66.94.25.228] refused to talk to me: 421 mail.tmail.com closing connection)
May 1 16:17:58 pomelo.borange.com postfix/smtp[24906]: [ID 197553 mail.info] 7CC5D1E9D7F: to=<[xxxxxxxxxx]@tmomail.net>, relay=mm3.tmomail.net[66.94.9.228]:25, delay=59233, delays=59229/0/4.2/0, dsn=4.0.0, status=deferred (host mm3.tmomail.net[66.94.9.228] refused to talk to me: 421 mail.tmail.com closing connection)
thanks, Graham
On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 7:33 PM, Graham Freeman <jahiel@gmail.com> wrote:
Delivering SMS-to-SMS would be impractical and prohibitively expensive. This is for an iPhone messaging app that optionally delivers messages to SMS recipients for free. The business model depends on email-to-SMS gateways.
I'm surprised more gateways aren't rate limiting or blocking you; my experience with these services is such that the providers really want you to utilize SMS instead, if you build up any sort of significant volume. I've certainly seen multiple providers delay this inbound mail periodically. Cheers, Al Iverson
On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Al Iverson <aiverson@spamresource.com> wrote:
I'm surprised more gateways aren't rate limiting or blocking you; my experience with these services is such that the providers really want you to utilize SMS instead, if you build up any sort of significant volume. I've certainly seen multiple providers delay this inbound mail periodically.
Al beat me to responding to this, but +1 on his comment. IIUC, the email-to-sms is definitely not for commercial use (as in an iPhone app), and is more for 1 to 1 type communications. If your client is looking to build a business around SMS communications, they need to make the investment to use the standard SMS platforms. --Jaren
On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Al Iverson <aiverson@spamresource.com> wrote:
I'm surprised more gateways aren't rate limiting or blocking you; my experience with these services is such that the providers really want you to utilize SMS instead, if you build up any sort of significant volume. I've certainly seen multiple providers delay this inbound mail periodically.
Hi, Al, That may be, but it would surprise me. The carriers still get paid by virtue of charging the recipients for the SMSes, and in this particular case cutting off this line of communication is leaving money on the table, as email->SMS deliverability is desired yet optional/secondary functionality of the app. On 15 May 10, at 08:29 , Jaren Angerbauer wrote:
Al beat me to responding to this, but +1 on his comment. IIUC, the email-to-sms is definitely not for commercial use (as in an iPhone app), and is more for 1 to 1 type communications. If your client is looking to build a business around SMS communications, they need to make the investment to use the standard SMS platforms.
--Jaren
Hi, Jaren, There appears to be a misunderstanding. The messages in question are in fact 1:1 interpersonal communication between my client's customers (the people who use my client's iPhone messaging app) and their correspondents (to whom we're trying to deliver via the email->SMS gateway). We're not sending ads, newsletters, or other such cruft. ... In any event, back to the original question: I would really appreciate any contacts at Tmobile who can help me sort this out. All of the Tmobile postmaster addresses I've tried have bounced. I've posted on the developer web forum, but that forum is specifically geared toward people developing on Tmobile phones, which isn't us. thanks, Graham
On 5/15/2010 6:38 PM, Graham Freeman wrote:
That may be, but it would surprise me. The carriers still get paid by virtue of charging the recipients for the SMSes, and in this particular case cutting off this line of communication is leaving money on the table, as email->SMS deliverability is desired yet optional/secondary functionality of the app.
Based on what I see in the marketplace today, I think that the average wireless carrier exec doesn't do the same math. For them, I think it's more like: Q: What's better than a service we can charge our users for? A: A service we can charge our users for, while at the same time charging somebody else.
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 4:38 PM, Graham Freeman <jahiel@gmail.com> wrote:
There appears to be a misunderstanding. The messages in question are in fact 1:1 interpersonal communication between my client's customers (the people who use my client's iPhone messaging app) and their correspondents (to whom we're trying to deliver via the email->SMS gateway). We're not sending ads, newsletters, or other such cruft.
Thanks for the clarification on this -- I didn't think this was the latter type of messaging, and perhaps my use of "commercial" was the wrong terminology. That being said, as your client appears to have issues only when the volume goes up, perhaps TMobile is getting the perception that these message are in some way "commercial", based on volume -- just a thought. In any case, back to Al's point, I agreed with him because I'm under the impression that mobile providers are leery of companies using email-to-sms (vs straight SMS) because of the spam potential. IIUC, it's much easier to manage / control abuse issues with SMS. I'm a bit out of my expertise element here, so I could be missing something. --Jaren
On May 15, 2010, at 4:38 PM, Graham Freeman wrote:
There appears to be a misunderstanding. The messages in question are in fact 1:1 interpersonal communication between my client's customers (the people who use my client's iPhone messaging app) and their correspondents (to whom we're trying to deliver via the email->SMS gateway). We're not sending ads, newsletters, or other such cruft.
That's probably why the mail is only being deferred (as you indicated on the mailop list), rather than rejected outright. -- J.D. Falk <jdfalk@returnpath.net> Return Path Inc
participants (5)
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Al Iverson -
Dave Sparro -
Graham Freeman -
J.D. Falk -
Jaren Angerbauer