Help: Slow sending emails via SmtpMail/MailMessage

[Stewart]

Hi,

I have a program which needs to send individual (customized) emails to
a few thousand recipients. Using the standard approach
SmtpMail/MailMessage method and Win 2000 server (SMTP service with
default settings) I find it takes about 1 second per email to relay it
through the SMTP service (that's not including time to sending). Why
is this so slow and what can I do to speed it up? Is there a change I
can make to machine.config or the SMTP service settings?

Thanks,

Stewart