Hello,

We're currently with Earthlink (both DSL and Web Hosting). Their DSL
service imposes a roughly 4-5 MB limit on the size of emails we can
send/receive in
one email. Although we don't do this often, we need to be able to
send/receive Powerpoint presentations and such that exceed 5 MB.  They
suggested using FTP and drop boxes and such, but we have 2 problems
with that:

1) it's an inconvenience for our clients and us

2) OTHER people are able to send/ receive large emails, why not us? 
What do they use?

What can we do?  I can't find any reliable/ professional ISP's
offering DSL that have larger size limits.  We are in Campbell, CA
95008 and New York, NY 10118.

Ed

The answer is quite simple. Although you have a host ISP which you use
to link to the Internet, you are not restricted to using their e-mail
services.  In fact, many businesses and even individuals feel that
using a local ISP as their primary or only e-mail address is a bad
idea, if only because they are held hostage to the ISP's restrictions
and that e-mail address. It really doesn't matter where you are
physically located for my solutions.

The simplest way to send large attachments is just to open an e-mail
account, either paid, or free, with an online e-mail provider such as
Ureach, or some other service which allows larger attachments than
EarthLink.

Ureach ( www.ureach.com ) is an example of a business-grade integrated
messaging service which offers toll-free phone numbers, e-mail
accounts, public and private Web space where you can share files, and
more.  Costs are very reasonable and there is no mention of a size
limitation for attachments. I haven't personally encountered any
limit. It appears that you would not be able to send a file larger
than the storage space you have paid for or have as a free basic
account. Costs begin at free and go as high as $7/month plus more for
very large storage amounts, but the paid plans include a toll-free
number with lots of answering and forwarding options as well as fax
services. I strongly recommend you check out Ureach's business
services to see if some of them wouldn't be very handy.

Yahoo and Hotmail do not offer large attachment capabilities, but
other services, such as WhaleMail ( http://www.whalemail.com/ ) can
work with an online service or your existing mail service to forward
very large files. Simply upload the file to WhaleMail and then send an
e-mail to the recipients. Instead of getting an attachment in their
mail, which is sometimes a problem if it is very large, the e-mail
medssage will contain a simple hyperlink to the file at WhaleMail.
This should be as transparent as simply using the attachment feature
of your current e-mail service. After all, they still ahve to click on
the attachment.

The only real drawback to using WhaleMail is that, because it normally
is used for very large files, they are deleted after 14 days. The cost
for the service depends on the amount of storage space you rent (and
hence the maximum file size you can upload and send.) 100M costs
$7.50/month and 400M costs just $30/month.  You can even forward
larger files but you will have to contact sales@swapdrive.com for
prices on really large storage capacities.

This may sound like a drop box which you say you don’t want, but it
actually combines a drop box with ease of use features and is really
transparent to your clients who simply get an e-mail and click on the
hyperlink just as they would click on any attachment. I don't know the
kind of business you are in or what the files contain but I can't see
how using WhaleMail would be any more difficult for the client than
getting attachments with the e-mail and it would give them the option
of not downloading it to their mail server or local drive until they
were ready for it or had verified that it was authentic. I don't
believe this would inconvenience them in any way.

For those who upload the files the situation is similar, you would
have to upload any attachment anyway and you simply upload it to
WhaleMail instead of your ISP’s mail account. I don't believe your
objections to a drop box would apply to WhaleMail and it is by far
your easiest option to implement, especially since you state that this
is a reasonably rare occurrence.

As to your question about why others can send large attachments and
you can't, that's because their mail service permits larger
attachments. ISPs are reluctant to do this because the attachments are
stored on their servers.

An alternative would be to ask your ISP if you can purchase a premium
account which will allow larger attachments but I doubt you will have
any luck with EarthLink.

Other information:

Internet(e)maillist has information about 3,047 free e-mail services
with various features:
http://www.internetemaillist.com/

Search Strategy:

Google serach terms used
best e-mail service attachment
://www.google.com/search?q=best+e-mail+service+attachment&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&newwindow=1&safe=off

I hope this answer meets your needs. Ureach can be used either as a
drop box or as an e-mail account with large attachments or both, while
WhaleMail functions just like an e-mail account although behind the
scenes it is a drop box which is essentially transparent to users.
There are always free solutions popping up among the many free-e-mail
services which come and go but they seldom last or they go commercial
so I don't recommend using one of them.

---

Clarification of Answer by siliconsamurai-ga on 12 Jul 2002 07:15 PDT

I've looked over the various comments and, while they are all possible
solutions which you may wish to consider, in my opinion they all have
major disadvantages over the recommendations I made.

I use the Web page option myself, but it is considerably more complex
than my recommendations.

A file splitter can cause more work at both ends, may pose security
problems, and probably isn't suitable for a company dealing with
customers.

I never recommend using Outlook because of the virus and worm
vulnerability associated with that software and I certainly wouldn't
feel comfortable telling customers that they must use it.

As for setting up a Linux mail server in your office, that's not a
viable business option for sending an occasional large file, if it
were, why would you bother with an ISP?

Still, these are all valid options so you may want to explore some of
the other suggestions if, for some reason you don't want to take the
easy routes I described.

Thank you all for your help and input, very much appreciated.

Outlook: It seems the easiest solution would be to use Outlook to
break them up, however a few of our clients use Netscape and I'm not
sure it has that capability.  So we need a backup plan...

Ureach: The problem is, per Earthlink Tech Support, if we connect
through Earthlink then we are required to use their servers (smtp)
because of spam controls on their network.  And you're right,
Earthlink doesn't offer a premium service with larger email
attachments.

use our website: a possibility

whalemail: a more appealing possibility, although I wonder if it works
both ways.  ie, if the client needs to send us something, can they use
our whalemail account?  I'll check out their website.

filesplitter: sounds a bit hokey, but still a possibility

mailserver: too much work/ more than we need

Once again, thank you for your suggestions.  I definitely wouldn't
rule any out just yet.

ed

Hi esarkissian-ga,

This is an alternative I use. I do photo enhancements via email and
quite often the enhanced photo file sizes exceed the 15Mb account
limit my ISP has on emails. My solution has been to create a temporary
folder, on my site, (unknown to anyone other than me and whoever is
getting the file). I then upload the file to that folder and create a
webpage with a download link for the customer to click on. After the
customer has successfully downloaded the file, I delete everything
associated with it. Crude, but effective.

webbob

Why not use a file splitter?  They are all over the place, cheap, and
easy to use.  If you'd like some directions and a suggestion or two,
I'd be happy to oblige. One I used recently autogenerates the script
to recombine the files (which is trivial anyway, but saves a step).

Cheers,

A supplier told me to use Outlook to automatically split the file so
the segmented email sent falls within the guidelines, it reassembles
the other end as one email.

Under Account options /Advanced and select "break apart messages
larger than" and set your size limit

If your ISP can give you a dedicated IP address then you can setup
your own mail server. If number of mailboxes is less then a hundred,
you can run the server on any ordinary PC that is connected to net all
the time. And you can configure a domain name so that this PC handles
email for this domain.

such that me@mycompany.com

Lightweight email servers are available for less then USD 50. And if
you can use linux, they are free of cost.

And this will remove ANY kind of restrictions on mail size.

Just be sure to change settings of the server so that only computers
in youe local LAN can use SMTP (mail sending) feature.

In defense of file splitting, with a bit of clarification.

With all due respect to siliconsamurai, who wrote:

>A file splitter can cause more work at both ends, may pose security
>problems, and probably isn't suitable for a company dealing with
>customers.
 
I have used file splitters as "a company dealing with customers." It
works just fine: no customer complaints or problems.

As for the security question, I'd be quite interested to hear what
sort of security problems would be posed beyond those already inherent
in the email attachment, whalemail, or ftp file transfer schemes
already suggested.  As far as I can tell, all are subject to
interception since they pass over public networks, and all have the
same needs for encryption or other protection mechanisms.  Encryption
and other protection schemes work just as well, and in some ways may
be considered more effective on split files -- since an intercept
would have to get several files, whereas in a single-email or
single-download situation only a single intercept would provide all
relevant data for analysis/hacking/etc.

As for there being more work at both ends, it is important to ask "How
much more?"

The whalemail and ftp or upload alternatives all require at least one
step more than simply attaching a document to an email and then
sending. Using a filesplitter, of which there are many extant, would
require acquiring one to begin with, then executing the filesplitter
at the sending end, then sending multiple emails to avoid the
attachment size limit. This doesn't strike me as all that much "more"
on the sending end, though of course opinions may vary.

On the receiving end the difference would be greater, and this perhaps
explains the stated hesitation about using this in the case of "a
company dealing with customers."  To be specific: the receiver would
have to save all the individual attachments in the multiple emails and
then execute one of those (the re-combining script).

I've not found it to be anything of a deal stopper in use in real
cases with real customers, current or potential.   Again, your mileage
and opinion may vary.

The questioner said specifically 
"1) it's an inconvenience for our clients and us"

When discussing something not much more complicated than WhaleMail so
I ignored all solutions which required installing software on both
client and company computers.

WhaleMail doesn't require any steps that are not required to send an
attachment from any e-mail service. Step one, you attach(upload) the
file, Step two, you supply an e-mail address.

As the site summarizes:
"It's that easy. Once you hit "Send," WhaleMail forwards an email
message to your recipients including a unique URL, routing them to the
location of your file. The recipient can then download your file via
their browser - with no ISP or FTP headaches or constraints."

For the client this means that they open an e-mail and, instead of
clicking on a seperate "attachment" button at the bottom of the
screen, they just click on the hyperlink within the body of the
message.

Sounds just like sending any e-mail with an attachment to me.

File-splitting, while a possibility, is far more complex. Using a drop
box which the client has to log into, or posting them on a Web page
would both be easier and more secure than file-splitting.

As for security concerns, I write a weekly security column and about
1/3 of the problems I encounter each week (usually about 50 news ones
each week)involve adding unnessary software to systems - anything you
ad that's not required can open up new and exciting holes as well as
making it more difficult and expensive to maintain the system.  In
this instance you are asking clients to share the risk and I never
recommend that to my consulting clients. I don't have any specific
complaint against file-splitting because we aren't disucssing any
specific programs or OS, but every MIS security plan I have ever seen
recommends against adding any unnessary programs, and, while I have
written a number of those plans, I don't write all of them.

> The problem is, per Earthlink Tech Support, if we connect
> through Earthlink then we are required to use their servers (smtp)
> because of spam controls on their network.  And you're right,
> Earthlink doesn't offer a premium service with larger email

Everyone.net Business Mail <http://www.everyone.net/> supports 10 MB
file attachments and includes authenticated SMTP via alternate ports
to work around Earthlink's restriction. You also get a free domain
name (or use your own), five 100 MB mailboxes with web and POP3
access, unlimited aliases/forwarding addresses, Symantec AntiVirus
email protection and tech support.

The other problem is the ISP of the person receiving the message may
not be able to receive emails that are 10+ MB either because their
mailbox is full or because the ISP does not accept large emails.

Use a whalemail-like service.