MacMail smtp setting changes on its own, goes "(Offline)". Why?

Hello All,
My wife's MacBookPro running Lion has a problem that shows up (as far as I can tell) randowmly but often: outgoing mail stops working and the smpt server setting is found to say "smtp-server.xxxxx.(offline)" This has been happening both here at home (Hawaii) and on the mainland, where she is now traveling and in adult child's apartment. This mainland aprtment is served by Comcast, home is served by Time Warner, but the problem (smtp changed to "Offline") acts the same in both places. Yes, we carefully set the new smtp server name string for the Comcast mail server.
I read pages of search results on this discussion and found just one thread with this issue. No resolution there. My wife gets incoming POP mail just fine.
As far as I can tell, my wife is not having the problem from use of iCloud. In fact, her MacBookPro is not set to use that mail, I think. (Windows guy here.) As far as I know this is the up-to-date Lion and MacMail.  Time Warner told me they get calls for this "Offline" issue all the tie and just direct people to delete that now-defunct outgoing connection and retype the correct smtp name through the use of the "Add" button. So that works temporarily.
Ports and authentication settings have been checked. All good.
Why is this happening?
Is there a better e-mail client from a third party? If Outlook on Windows was this squirrely we'd have all bailed to some other solution by now, but this may be a result of some other factor. I am open to suggestion.
Thanks, in advance, for suggestions.
jonathan7007

Time Warner told me they get calls for this "Offline" issue all the tie and just direct people to delete that now-defunct outgoing connection and retype the correct smtp name through the use of the "Add" button. So that works temporarily.
This implies that Time Warner has a general issue with their mail server set-up; that they have a mail server or DNS-level issue within whatever servers and configuration they're using to host email.  Google or Bing search for other folks, or check Time Warner support forums for other discussions.  Also ask the support folks directly around what platforms they're encountering these offline issues with.
And though the Time Warner support folks have probably already suggested this, check that the ISP-recommended settings for mail are in place.  In particular, confirm the TCP port are you using for SMTP mail.  It's common to have TCP port 25 blocked outbound (either by an ISP or corporate firewall, or by mail server policies), which means that mail server submissions are via (usually) configured to require TCP 587, with credentials specified.  Connecting on TCP 25 can lead to various weirdnesses; that's best left for communications among mail servers.
Apple Mail.app certainly does have a few idiosyncracies, but this isn't one I've encountered.  (One that does appear from time to time is a password dialog on certain sorts of network "disconnectivity" errors.) 
If you're going to assume that the client operating system or tools are at fault (which is a perfectly reasonable starting point for troubleshooting), then get yourself some proof of whether or not that's actually the case; that your theory is correct.  Get yourself a free or a commercially-hosted account (and commercial hosting for your own email domain is cheap, these days) and see if that connection stays solid, and whether or not Time Warner server(s) remain reachable. 
A free mail client such as Thunderbird can also potentially point to whether the problem is with Mail.app or with another component within the configuration, or with the mail server or network connection.
My guess is that (barring network outages), the "new" mail server connection will not require resetting the account settings; that the problem is specific to the Time Warner configuration or settings, or with the Time Warner mail servers.  If this "new" connection holds, then the suspicion would fall toward the Time Warner mail servers, or the network connection into those mail servers.
And FWIW, for receiving mail, IMAP has various advantages over POP.

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