Is it worth small businesses moving from residential to business DSL?, Part 1

In the Jan. 19 issue of this newsletter, we addressed the issue of fair telecoms and broadband pricing, and on Feb. 7, we shared some input from BellSouth’s perspective.

As you might have guessed, the topic didn’t come totally out of the blue. In fact, the discussion arose because Steve’s external SMTP e-mail stopped working on his residential DSL service. As it turns out, BellSouth is one of several service providers that have started blocking sending e-mail from any server other than their own, doing “port 25 blocking” in order to decrease abuse via spam. But Steve was also informed that if he upgraded to business DSL, port 25 was open for SMTP mail – plus there were a list of additional benefits.

By the way, Steve wants to point out that before he is accused of trying to defraud BellSouth, residential DSL was the only DSL service available at the time that it was ordered several years ago. Further, for the past 20 or so years, Steve has paid the extra bucks for a business phone line. (There was a time when people actually would look for a business via directory assistance rather than operating totally over electronic media, and Steve has not yet discontinued that service.)

Consequently, the discussion began in earnest concerning whether Steve should make a switch to “business DSL” service. This would allow Steve to continue using the same services that he had before the port 25 block was installed. Frankly, none of the additional features were needed. And the base price for the service was almost doubled.

So why did Steve decide to make this move? Were there extenuating circumstances? We’ll continue the saga next time.