I am having difficulty connecting to the Internet using my Telstra Next G LG mobile phone as a modem, mainly so I can send and receive email messages while away from home (I don’t intend to use this for web browsing, as this would become very costly). Outlook Express is my email client, and when I connect to the internet using the inbuilt modem over a standard phone line everything works fine, and I can send and receive email messages. However, I run into trouble when attempting to use the mobile phone as a modem. I am using all the same settings as for my standard dial up modem connection, and have unsuccessfully tried three separate methods of connecting. First, I have tried the phone as a dial-up modem and attempted to dial the same OzEmail national number (0198379000). The mobile phone does nothing, and almost immediately a message appears on the computer saying “Error Message 678 - The remote computer did not respond”. The second approach used the LG Internet Kit which was supplied with the phone. This is a program that I understand was produced by Telstra for LG and the standard default setting is to use the Telstra PS Data network using the shortcut dialling number *98#. I changed that shortcut dialling number to the standard Ozemail dial up number (0198379000). This produced the same error message as above, and the phone did not actually dial out. Third approach was just to connect via the Telstra short cut dialling number (*98#) and this gives me a connection. However, while I can receive incoming e-mail messages, I cannot send any outgoing messages. Attempts to send produce the following message: “The message could not be sent because the server rejected the sender’s e-mail address…Server Response: 530 Authentication required”. I have tried a different brand of phone (ZTE 850) which functions as a standard modem and dials the OzEmail 0198379000 number with no trouble. Contacting my ISP, the phone manufacturer, and Telstra have not resolved the problem, each suggesting that I contact the other two. The computer is an Acer Aspire laptop computer running Windows XP SP2.

First, thank you for the comprehensive description of the problem. For the benefit of other readers, Graeme included many other details which have not been published (due to space restrictions) but this has made understanding the problem much easier, and allows us to work better towards a resolution. In your question you have identified two main problems. First, when you establish an internet connection using the LG phone and the Telstra data network shortcut number *98# you are able to receive email messages, but are not able to send. Second, when you attempt to establish a connection using the standard OzEmail dial-up number on your LG phone the phone is unable to dial this number.

Dealing with the first problem, whereby you can successfully establish an internet connection through the Telstra data network (using the *98#), you mention that you can successfully receive email but not send emails. The reason for this behaviour is because OzEmail, like most (if not all) other ISPs, lock down their outbound email servers so that only users who are connected to the internet through OzEmail can send email through their outbound mail server. This prevents users who are not connected to the internet through OzEmail from using the OzEmail outbound mail server. You may ask why this is the case, and there is a very good reason. If ISPs did not secure and lock-down their outbound mail servers using this method then anyone around the world could use their mail server to send email. This is not a good idea, as then spammers could use the mail server to send bulk spam emails and the ISP would have no way to trace back the person that sent those email messages. At least when the mail server is locked down to customers of the ISP they can trace who sent particular emails, and politely ask them to stop. That said, some ISPs do allow you to send through their mail server, even if you are not connected to their network, provided that you authenticate to their mail server. This means that you login to their outbound mail server, using your normal username and password, to “prove” that you are one of their customers and should be able to use their outbound mail server. The message which you receive in response to sending an email using their outbound server “530 Authentication required” seems to indicate that the server has realised that you are not connected to the OzEmail network, and is requesting authentication for you to send email through the server. So, we can try to setup authentication within Outlook Express to see whether this will allow you to send emails.

Before proceeding, make sure you have a pen and paper handy so you can note down the original settings, as if this does not work we would have likely broken your ability to send email using your normal dial-up connection as well. So, write down the original value of any settings before changing, in case you need to reverse the change. To proceed, open Outlook Express and go to the “Tools” menu > “Accounts”. In the window that appears, click the “Mail” tab and select your email account then click “Properties”. In the properties window for your mail account, click the “Servers” tab. Under the “Outgoing Mail Server” heading tick the option “My server requires authentication” and click the “Settings” button. Make sure “Use same settings as my incoming mail server” is enabled and click OK and then OK again in the account properties window. Close the Internet Accounts window. Now, try sending an email while connected to the internet through the Telstra data network to see whether the outbound mail server authentication is working. If so, disconnect form the Telstra data network and try using your normal dial-up connection to check whether this continues to work. If all looks good, then it seems this portion of the problem is solved. If this does not work, you will need to reverse the change (i.e. disable outbound mail server authentication) otherwise you will not be able to send any emails.

If you cannot authenticate to send outbound emails through the OzEmail mail server then you will be unable to send emails through this server without actually being connected to the internet through OzEmail. Obviously, if you are using the Telstra data network then this is not an option. However, you should be able to use the Telstra outbound mail server to send your email instead. Since you are connected to the Telstra data network, using their outbound mail server should resolve the problem (unless they have additional security enabled, which we will discuss later). I have been unable to find an authoritative source which discloses the mail server used for the Telstra data network, so you will need to contact Telstra for this information. Once you have the mail server address, open the properties for your email account again and on the “Servers” tab change the “Outgoing mail (SMTP)” server address to the address provided by Telstra. Save the changes and attempt to send an email message to see whether this works. Most likely, this should work correctly. However, you won’t be able to send email using this server when you are connected via normal dial-up to OzEmail, since you will not be connected to the internet through Telstra. As such, you will need to change the outbound mail server back to OzEmail when you are connected through OzEmail. Then, when you are using Telstra, change the address to the Telstra mail server address. Inconvenient, but a workable solution.

However, should using the Telstra mail server not work, this could be because the server inspects the “From” address of emails sent through the server and realises that you are not sending the email from a @telstra.net or @bigpond.com address, and is rejecting the message (even though you are connected to the internet through the Telstra network). Should this be the case, you are somewhat out of luck as you can’t change your “From” address since anyone who replies to your messages will not send them to your primary OzEmail address. In this situation, we will need to investigate fixing the issue of being unable to connect to OzEmail dial-up through the LG mobile phone as detailed below.

Now that we have concluded our investigations of why you are unable to send email when connected to the Telstra data network, we will now look at the second part of the question, as to why you are unable to connect to the normal OzEmail dial-up number through your LG mobile phone. Before taking this diagnosis further, I would like to recommend that, depending on the way you are using the internet, using the Telstra data network may be a better option than using the OzEmail dial-up connection through your LG phone. This is because when using the Telstra data network you are generally only charged for the data you download. So, you can stay connected for as long as you like, as you are not charged based upon time. Additionally, since your phone is a Next G phone you will get near broadband speeds (of course, you need to be in a Next G covered area, but this seems to be most of Australia). In contrast, if you are using your LG phone to connect to the internet through the OzEmail dial-up number then your phone is likely treating this as a normal phone call, so you could be charged per minute or second for being on the phone, for as long as you are connected. Again, since I do not know the particulars of your mobile phone agreement I cannot say for certain whether these assumptions are correct, but you should investigate these before going further, to ensure you find the most cost effective means of connecting to the internet while on the road.

Assuming you wish to still use the LG to connect to OzEmail dial-up internet, I reviewed the instructions for setting up the LG Internet Kit from the Telstra website (www.telstra.com.au/mobile/docs/mobile_modem_lg_setup.pdf). As you are probably already aware, these instructions show how to setup the LG Internet Kit to use the Telstra data network (with the *98# number). Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a method to use the LG Internet Kit to connect to the internet using a different dial-up internet service. As I do not have one of these devices myself I have been reliant on information found on the internet and forums to answer your question, but I have not been able to find any information on whether you can connect to a normal dial-up internet service. My feeling is that by using this software it may not be possible, as it seems to be specifically designed for connecting to GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or other mobile data service networks. However, I did notice that in the manual that the “Call Type” box which has “GPRS” by default is a drop-down menu, which can be changed. Check whether this can be changed to a different type of call type, as you really just want to use the phone like a modem. Should this not work, there is unfortunately little else I can suggest, as I have not had experience with this equipment or the opportunity to experiment. Since the other stakeholders in this situation seem unable to assist, you may need to consider a different phone which does support this function, such as the ZTE 850 which you found worked correctly. Please let me know how this goes.