Using Mail.app on WiFi networks where all but port 80 are blocked

Question

I use my iPad at my residence where WiFi is comes via  my Airport Extreme.  I have no problems sending mail from home with my iOS 5 device using iCloud.  However, when I find myself at a public library, conference facility, hotel, motel, etc. where there is WiFi, I usually find that I cannot send email.  These networks typically block all but the ports that websites use (80, 8080 and so on).  This means that the ports typically used by SMTP (25) are blocked and, thus, do not work.  Going to iCloud.com with mobile Safari does not enable the use of web mail as it would on a laptop.
So, I can't use iCloud web mail and I typically can't use Apple Mail on the iPad because SMTP ports are blocked.  What's a person in this situation to do?

Answer 1

Hello Ivan.
The Mac OS X 10.4.7 Update introduced connection issues as a result of (according to the documentation) "Mail now supports connecting to mail servers through a SOCKS proxy". If that's the problem, you must go to System Preferences > Network and disable the SOCKS Proxy in the network configuration used to connect to the Internet, if it's enabled.
You should also go to System Preferences > Network > Show: Network Port Configurations, and make sure that the configuration used to connect to Internet appears at the top of the list.