Creating an SMTP Carrier

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SMTP is the protocol used to send email of all varieties, including those delivered as SMS; nearly every US and Canadian carrier supports text messaging to their phones using a public access SMTP/Email gateway.

 

PageGate has a full mail server engine as a core part of the program and this gives you the ability to send SMTP/Email messages in one of two ways: Direct and Relayed

 

To explain the difference between the two, direct delivery allows PageGate to use its own mail server engine to directly negotiate with the receiving mail servers. Relayed delivery configures PageGate to pass all of its traffic through a verified SMTP server for delivery, like an email client.

 

Technically, direct delivery is more efficient and reliable because it removes at least one hop in the delivery sequence and also means that PageGate isn't reliant on another mail server for delivery. However, when you have PageGate use direct delivery for SMTP/Email, it has to abide by all of the rules required of a mail server because the program will be functioning as a mail server to deliver SMTP/Email on behalf of your email domain. This is incredibly important to note because, in an effort to combat spam, all major US and Canadian carriers pay respect to SPF records.

 

SPF stands for "Sender Policy Framework" and is a record of public IP addresses that are allowed to deliver email on behalf of your email domain. This record is published by whoever owns and operates the email domain. If the PageGate server's public IP address is not part of your email domain's SPF record, the major carriers will filter your messages as potential spam for failing the SPF validation check. If you continue to send traffic that fails SPF validation checks, the receiving servers will eventually blacklist your site from sending any traffic to them.

 

Due to some of the complications involved in configuring PageGate for direct delivery, it is usually more practical to configure PageGate to relay its SMTP/Email traffic through your company or ISP's SMTP/Email server. However, doing so makes PageGate reliant on that mail server for message delivery.

 

For information on how to configure a "Relayed Delivery" SMTP carrier, click here.

 

For information on how to configure a "Direct Delivery" SMTP carrier, click here.