IMAP/POP/SMTP & Email IDs supported on Jaamun

Hi

Some of you who have signed up for Jaamun service must have come across the terms IMAP/ POP & SMTP. I believe many of you would have heard about these terms. However, for the benefit of everyone I would discuss this in detail in this blog & also how it affects Jaamun service.

IMAP & POP are internet protocols that are used by email clients such as Outlook/Thunderbird to retrieve your email from email servers. What this means in very simple terms is that these protocols allow you to receive email automatically through a software without having to login and check for new email everytime manually. SMTP on the other hand is the protocol by which an email client can send an email.

Now, IMAP/POP is available on almost all email servers (Microsoft Exchange, Domino, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc.). However, on free email services such as those provided by Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Rediff, Indiatimes etc. the access might be restricted. Gmail & Hotmail provide IMAP services on all email accounts absolutely free. Yahoo on the other hand provides POP access on certain accounts such as yahoo.in, yahoo.co.in, yahoo.co.uk etc. & on all paid email accounts. Other email providers such as Rediff, Indiatimes provide POP access on paid accounts only.

IMAP/POP access is critical to Jaamun service, since we use these protocols to securely pull your email from the email server and deliver it as an SMS. Further, Jaamun service can be integrated with any email server that supports IMAP/POP which includes enterprise servers such as Microsoft Exchange etc. Due to the fact that IMAP/POP access may not be available on some email accounts, some of our users would not be able to use Jaamun service.

From our end we are making all efforts to make Jaamun service available on all email accounts. Hopefully, we should return with some good news on this subject in the near future.

Let us know what you think could be the reason why some email providers restrict access to IMAP/POP services while other provide it for free.

Cheers

Note:
For a more technical discussion on IMAP/POP & SMTP you can check out the following wikipedia links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Message_Access_Protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTP