Batelco is set to block the simple mail transfer protocol e-mails through port 25 for all retail and wholesale residential Broadband ADSL customers from next month in order to curb spamming and similar practices.

The measure will only affect those using Port 25 to send e-mails, the telecom operator said in a statement.

Batelco will exclude all of its clients with a Business Broadband ADSL account from the port 25 block, since it is very important to maintain their e-mail communication connections running, uninterrupted, it added.

Customers using port 25 must contact their e-mail provider to ask for an alternative port number, so as to avoid service interruption resulting from the block,' said a senior official.

'However, if a customer uses another port number for SMTP e-mail transmission, he will not be affected. Also, customers using the free email accounts on the Batelco.com.bh domain, hosting their email domains with Batelco or using other protocols, such as http, https (webmail) - which include major email providers, such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! - , will be unaffected by this block,' the official noted.

'E-mail spam is increasingly becoming a problematic and disruptive issue for countless internet users globally, including many Batelco customers. Each day, many of our customers fall victim and their systems get infected with malicious content through the Internet, due to lack of security measures on their PCs,' the official said.

'Such harmful tools enable spammers to take over the control of their PCs and generate massive quantities of spam to other users utilizing the customers Internet connection. Such practice could utilize the bandwidth of the customer as well as his computer resources.

'In order to curb incidences of spamming and similar practices, various Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBLs) have been established to blacklist the IP addresses of individuals identified as being heavily involved in spamming.'

'Although some of those blacklisted are deliberately involved in spamming, many legitimate users, who do not spam intentionally, have their IP addresses blacklisted, which results in their e-mails being rejected by recipients.'

'A number of Batelco customers suffer through a great deal of inconvenience and difficulty, due to being barred from sending out e-mails by RBLs because of spamming.'

'As a result, Batelco feels obligated to make adjustments to its internet services in order to reduce the occurrence of spamming, understanding fully that its customers are unwitting participants in these malicious activities,' the official said.

Batelco said it has identified the blocking of port 25 (default port used by email clients for sending emails in POP3/IMAP email accounts) as an effective approach to greatly restrict the flow of spam e-mails.

This mechanism will prevent users from sending SMTP e-mails through port 25, which is highly prized by spammers for its ease-of-use and pervasiveness among e-mail clients. Such an approach is globally known and implemented by many ISPs to reduce the amount of spam, and has proven to be very effective, he added.-TradeArabia News Service