Grrr - consumer-grade ISPs

I've just wasted over an hour trying to figure out why Katy was not able to access her email via POP at our Google-hosted domain. Sending mail worked fine; receiving, though, just hung.

It turned out to be the firewall settings on the Verizon-provided DSL router at Katy's parent's home in Falmouth. It was blocking outbound access to port 995, used by gmail's POP server. I switched the firewall setting on the router to "minimum" (from "typical") and the port was unblocked.

I have to believe that Verizon changed this setting recently, because email from here has worked before. Grrrr. Maybe this blog posting will save someone else a little fruitless searching...