Ok thanks to this forum I have sorted 90% of my iphone queries with SEARCH but I am having problems with sending email. I am with westnet for my internet & email account & virgin for GPRS so filled out Incoming MS with mail.wesnet.com.au, username: ***** password:**** seems to work. Outgoing MS, Host Name:mail.optusnet.com.au, username:****@westnet.com.au, password same as obove. When i send an error message says check settings for mail@optusnet & then I check my laptop email & it asks for a username & password ?

Two separate things here. Firstly, have you tried using westnet as your outgoing server. Although you are on optus for the phone, you probably can't go through their email server unless you have an email account with them. If your outgoing server is westnet when you send from your laptop, then it should be the same from your iPhone.

Secondly - the asking for username and password on your laptop. I'm with different providers to you, but I get the same thing sometimes. It seems to happen if my email server picks up that it is being spoken to by two different machines using the same username. If I make sure that the mail program is only open on one machine at a time, then it is fine.

Hope that helps.

Nathan

Nathan, have tried mail.westnet with my username etc with no luck, I'm with Virgin but read in a previous post that Virgin use the Optus network & used the mail.optusnet with success.

Let me explain something, this goes for any internet connection...

If you dialup/connect with ABC provider (insert method here) and then wish to send email from your email account with provider XYZ, then of course the incoming mail server (POP or IMAP) would be the set to the provider XYZ, but to send email you MUST use the outgoing mail server of the provider your currently connected too for that internet connection.

So in this situation, you must use ABC provider's outgoing mail server to send mail (SMTP server).

Basically all mail servers are configured this way to avoid them being configured to RELAY mail for anyone. They will only RELAY mail for people/customers on IP addresses the ISP owns (not people on another ISP's ip address). Otherwise anyone could abuse the mail server and not be a customer. It's to stop abuse and spamming. OPEN RELAY smtp mail servers = BAD!

It's simple as, when connected to ABC providers network, you must use ABC providers SMTP server for outgoing mail, when connected to XYZ providers network you must use XYZ providers SMTP server for outgoing mail.

Hope they helps you understand a little better.

Thanks Purana