One of my client's outgoing email service stopped working today. My web design business provides the POP3 (incoming) service, but it appears that BT are now enforcing a requirement for authentication of outgoing mail if people use their btconnect SMTP server.

They sent my client a BT Yahoo! warning email - which the client couldn't understand - then 3 days later her attempts to send outgoing mail began generating an alert to enter a username and password.

I set up the authentication for her this morning, which is simple enough, but it appears the domain, which is not hosted by BT, has been 'blacklisted' because she missed the authentication deadline. After an hour on the phone on her behalf, BT say the domain has been put back on their 'white-list' but she still can't send email. I'll see what happens tomorrow.

More distressing for me was that it appears all my BT broadband clients must notify BT if they send mail from a domain for which BT are not the registrar, so that the domain can be 'approved' and outgoing email will be sent. The BT website where this notification is supposed to be made:

http://www.btconnect.com/maildomain/

says domains will be approved within 5 working days.

I appreciate that SMTP relays get abused, but sending paying customers an unclear, technical email and then pulling the plug on their email service is astonishingly bad customer service, even for BT!.

I just wondered if anyone knew of a reasonably priced commercial SMTP service that works with BT Business broadband and was easy for clients to set up?

i know what u mean.. freeserve (now wanadoo) also do the same, and u have to use authentication thru their smtp server to send outgoing emails, even from your own pc.. i have my gmail account setup like that.. there's no other way of doing it as i think the ISP themselves block outgoing requests on port 25 to anywhere but their own server.

I have only started researching this today, but I believe you can use port 26 or 2525 to get around ISPs blocking 3rd party SMTP services, but I don't know if this would work with BT.

What is laughable is that BT would insist that their Broadband customers use their SMTP server, then stop people from using it. Then they tell customers how to get it working again... then they stop them from using it again because their domain is blacklisted. Then they tell customers how to get back on the 'white-list' in 5 days time... maybe.

I suppose most companies paying for BT Business broadband can wait 5 days without sending an email, can't they?.

i stopped using BT internet about 4 years ago when they told me that if i was connected for more than 12hrs per day they would cancel my account as they class it as unattended operation etc and a breech of terms & conditions. even tho i was 'paying' for an anytime package.. to me anytime means anytime, all the time.. i continued to leave my pc connected 24 hrs whilst downloading and stuff + remote access when i was staying at my girlfriends house in leeds.. and after a week they cancelled my account.. so i left.. i also no longer pay any line rental or call charges to BT, i'm totally independant from em..

BT's service packages were (and probably still are) incredibly confusing. I once asked about ISDN options and it took the salesman 15 minutes to explain the differences between 'Friends Surf-n-Turf 24 'and 'Anytime 24/7 Surf and Friends' or whatever they were called. Even after studying the options I still had no clear idea what restrictions applied or what the benefits were.

Based on yesterday's experience, as far as customer care is concerned, having the word 'Business' in your account appears to count for very little, except a higher bill.