Mediacom and Mail

I have seen a lot of posts from people having trouble with setting up their Mail with Mediacom. I know I have had more than my share of frustrations. The Mediacom support people were not very familiar with Macs, and most of the people I talked with really didn't know what settings to use.

I have got it working, so I wanted to post the settings that I use, in the hope that it will help others having the same problem.

To set up your connection to receive mail: (using Mail 3.5)

Under Preferences, pick the Mediacom account that you initially set up.

Make sure the following is entered:

email address: enter your full email address (including the @mchsi.com portion)
Full name: your name
Incoming Mail Server: mail.mchsi.com
Username: your email address name WITHOUT the @mchsi.com (just the part before the @ sign)
Password: your password
Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): we'll get back to that in a minute

Then click on the Advanced tab.

Under the Advanced tab:

Port: 995 Use SSL should be clicked
Authentication: Password


Now go back to the Account Information tab.
Under Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) choose "edit server list" from the drop-down menu.

Highlight your Mediacom account.
The Server name should also say "mail.mchsi.com". If it doesn't, fix it.

Then click on the Advanced tab.

The Use default ports (25,465,587) should be chosen
Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) should be clicked
Authentication: Password
Username: your email name NOT INCLUDING THE "@mchsi.com" (everything before the @ sign)
Password: your password

Then click OK and save it.

One problem I had was that the Mediacom support people didn't think that there should be password authentication for outgoing mail. I was stuck in a situation in which I could receive mail but not send it, until I fixed this through trial and error.