port 25 refused

[Sanjay Arora]

O
> > I am from India and use Ethernet based connectivity (which breaks
> > frequently) from a cable ISP who provides a private ip address
> > 172.16.x.x and masqed outbound connectivity.
> 
> That is really wierd! We have a vpn for a section of Salford Uni with an
> IP address of 172.16.x.x and it's completely useless (IMO)
> 
> According to whois though, it's owned by ICANN for private purposes so
> shouldn't be allocated to anyone!
> 
Well, it is...but it is being done a lot in India. There are many small
home operation ISPs who use Linux based NAT boxes to provide
connectivity to home users. Speed is usually comparable to dial-up 56k
modems, though they are called BROADBAND always-on connections ;-) Guess
the only thing broad about it is the name.

In fact MTNL & BSNL the National telcos provide a similar service using
NAT & address rangs 10.x.x.x, throughout India. I think thatś because
the home user broadband (64K wide) has started to compete with 64K
leased lines which provide a live IP and cost ten or more times as
much.Giving private address space stops the inbound services and makes
the connection much less valuable.

Thats what I want to break out of by using a hosted UML server costing
5-10$/month and getting my NAT box to use a VPN getting the inbound
packets from the hosted ip to my machine. The problem is, I dont know
how? And the issues regarding security/performance etc. involved.

Comments anyone?

With best regards.
Sanjay.