exchange.1and1.com does NOT work in Peru, and workaround

[jbracer]

I was traveling in Peru for a whole month, and never could access OWA through exchange.1and1.com from a web browser. Either the domain name record is broken, or they have a special filter from ip addresses for that country.

As per comments from many other users, their support was horrible. It took several days to even answer my support request, and finally their answer was that it must be the computer I was using because that was "impossible".

Well, I don't know why it happens, but it is a real issue. I wonder in how many other countries that happens.

By luck, looking at an old google archived page, I found an old IP address, and thus https://217.160.230.241/logon_en.asp works. Using this hardwired ip address, I was able to access my e-mail using OWA. But this is way too brittle a solution for comfort.

Interestingly, even though I gave the above address to their technical support, and thus "proving" that it was not the computer I was using because everything worked when I used a hardwired ip address, they still had no clue what was going on.

I was very disappointed at their support, but I can't find any other hosted Exchange provider at this price. And other than this issue, the system has been very stable and has worked great. Other providers offer something like $9.95/month for only 100 MB, whereas 1and1 offers 1 GB for $7.95/month. Much better deal.

So I'm keeping them for now. But if I were traveling more, I would have to switch providers.

[C-4 Hosting]

My only thought is that if you are able to get to it through an IP address but not the FQDN, then more than likely its a DNS issue. Whatever DNS server your using to resolve FQDN's, doesn't have the exchange.1and1.com.

When in Peru, you might want to see if the ISP your using has multiple DNS servers to choose from. Another thought is to just use an external DNS ( something other than the DNS from the ISP ).

[jbracer]

Thanks for replying. Your points are good, except I'm not sure that is the issue because this occurred in every single Internet cafe I visited, and I visited 5 differenct cities in opposite parts of the country. Peru is 3 times larger than California, so I doubt it's all one ISP (though I don't really know).

[C-4 Hosting]

I cant imagine it being any other issue other than DNS not resolving correctly. Its possible I'm wrong, but the fact that your able to get to it using the IP says to me that exchange.1and1.com is just not pointing correctly in DNS somewhere.

I understand what you are saying that more than likely, all those cafe's are not using the same DNS servers.

If you were still there, you could check DNSstuff.com and other utilities to see exactly what the problem is.. Even doing as much as a ping test and trace routing might help :)