At what level do ISPs control ports?
I'm aware most ISPs do not allow for port 25 to be open for email use outside of business licenses, but at what level is that controlled? Can I get around that by owning my own router? Owning my own modem or ONT? Or is this just a thing they mystically control further up the pipeline that a relative layman such as myself can't get around?
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Your ISP controls what ports you can access using one or more firewalls and traffic control devices somewhere past the point where you connect to their network.
They can block whatever ports they want. The only way around this is to use a VPN, which creates a tunnel directly from your device to a remote server to route traffic. This still goes through your ISP and whatever firewall they have but does so over a port that they (probably) don't block. They can't see what ports your web or network requests are using so they can't block it directly.
Depending on your technical know how and what type of router you have, you could set up a VPN at the device level (PC, phone, etc.) to send just requests from that device or at the router level which could send all traffic from your network through the VPN.
It's important to remember when using a VPN that the VPN servers can still see (and potentially log) all of your traffic, even if your ISP cannot. You still need to find a VPN service that you trust to not monitor your traffic.
I'm not terribly worried about a service seeing my traffic, the initial concept was for a self-hosted server to run a business email and site and some tools on, but I can't do email through my ISP without paying an arm and a leg, and my business doesn't make enough for that...
For a small business, a service such as GoogleApps or Microsoft365 is likely going to be a cheaper solution than self hosting this. Plus including productivity applications and cloud storage as part of the package in most instances.
It will be much, much safer as well. If you're unsure of how to do this, do not do it yourself. Setup a home lab, sure. Use it to learn but do not run your business this way!
Source: Am e-mail admin.
Is there a service that is only email? Most of the offerings in those packages are either too much bloat of applications that are unnecessary, and/or are too expensive for what they actually would provide that we would use.
I'd much rather keep using the tools that we're used to and have set up than move to a different ecosystem, especially one that tracks a lot of the data we use with it
Microsoft’s Exchange Online Plan 1 is email-only and is 4/month per user. There are probably cheaper IMAP providers, but EO1 is full exchange: mail, global address book, calendars, etc.