Strange FIOS App Spam Overseas vs US Observation
NtrLpr7
Enthusiast - Level 1

Can someone explain the following experience?

I have maxed out the number of allowed SPAM filter rules and as a result I get multiple spam messages every day.  I access my email messages either from my home computer via the Verizon Webmail interface or on my iPhone via the Verizon FIOS app when I am away from home or at work (normal over the air LTE signal).  Regardless, I get multiple spam EVERY day.

Recently while vacationing overseas I had no webmail access via computer and had to rely solely on the FIOS app on my iPhone.  ATT is my iPhone provider not Verizon.  To avoid international roaming charges I put my iPhone in airplane mode and turned on WiFi at the airport beofre my departure.  The hotel I stayed at had free Wifi access for 1 hour per day.  Every evening on the way to dinner I stopped in the lobby, connected to the hotel Wifi and launched the FIOS app to check my email.  I noticed that unlike when I am on US soil, even though I could successfully log into the FIOS app, the only panel that was available was the email panel.  I could not see the billing panel, the DVR panel, the home phone caller ID log panel or the home phone voicemail panel.  Even more stangely, there was no SPAM.  ZIp, zero, none, everyday for the entire length of my vacation.  I logged on once per day in the evening before dinner every day and ZERO SPAM.

Once I landed back on US soil, at the airport I turned off airplane mode on my iPhone, got an ATT LTE over the air signal and launched the FIOS app.  I was immediately able to see all the regular information panes on the app that I could not see overseas but more interestingly, once I checked my email, there was the usual spam there.  The spam was only for that day that I logged on in the airport here in the US.  I cheked my mail history and no spam was there for each day that I was overseas and used the FIOS app from the hotel lobby.

Can anyone explain this?  I have always been under the impression that Verizon cannot control SPAM at the server level.  I'm no techie but the easy explanation is that the spam was either being blocked by the overseas server or Verizon recosnized it as spam and refused to forward it to the overseas server (possibly due to the cost to them).  But that doesn't makle sense because my email is delivered to the Verizon server and sits there in my box until I retrieve it.  The overseas server should not come into play?  Is this behavior akin to the observation by some that when they retrieve their Verizon email via Yahoo or Google, they don't get the same volume of spam as they get when they get the email directly from Verizon?  I never quite understood that?  Verizon is just as deep pocketed as Google and more deep pocketed than Yahoo, neither of which is a monopoly, so why can't they provide even half way decent spam protection? 

The only other possibly pertinent info I can add is that I the hotel I stayed at was Spanish owned but in an English speaking country.  The provider of the Wifi is based in Spain.

Thoughts?

And yes, I have gotten the usual daily dose of SPAM, every single day since I returned to the US.

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