BT email servers and settings

Oh joy. BT are upgrading their email system. Welcome to the brave new world of Office 365. What a piece of junk it is too.

Which meant that I, and plenty of others, have been left up a creek without a paddle.

OK, so you are wondering what they have done and how to connect.

In the first instance they have sold their souls to the devil (that is M$). That's because it is easier for them to sub it out. It also means that M$ get their hands on a whole pile of new customers to try and flog their products too. Oooohhh, and I guess a sneak preview of all your lovely data for 'Boing' too. Nice.

BT will undoubtedly get some 'kickback' from M$. Despite Phorm being kicked in to touch, I am pretty sure they do a whole load of looking at your data - all those 'useful' BT helper applications monitoring all your activity.

They have also tried to cure that pesky problem of greedy little businesses trying to run servers and lots of computers behind their routers. What a nasty bunch of users they are too. They've all got loads of money and none of it is going to BT.


OK. So the bit you want. New BT login details as follows.

POP setting

• Server name: pop.outlook.com
• Port: 995
• Encryption method: SSL

SMTP setting

• Server name: smtp.outlook.com
• Port: 587
• Encryption method: SSL/TLS

Depending on your email software, note that you need 'SSL' applied and possibly your authentication password.

Username maybe one of the following depending on what service you have :

• yourname@btclick.com
• yourname@btconnect.com
• an email address which uses a domain name you own, e.g. yourname@yourcompany.co.uk/.com/.net

Office 365 drawbacks. Where do I start ? BT expects that every user will use the online webmail. Which is awful. No consideration that people might not want to use it.

If you do you still use a desktop client, each user now has to authenticate with their own login details to send email (the From address has to match the login details). It completely screws you if you have your own server using the BT/M$ smarthost using one generic account for sending. I guess you can so something if you have M$ Exchange server, but if you use something like a Linux server, then currently you are right royally buggered. There probably is a solution, but at the minute I don't know what it is and I'm trying to find out.

So now you have to set up each client to send directly to the BT/M$ smarthost, bypassing your own server. A lot of work, and it means you can't control outgoing mail on your server so no generic company signatures, outgoing virus checking etc etc etc

This was changed without any notification and left lots of people wondering why their mail wouldn't send. Nice.

It was done allegedly to cut out the amount of spam being sent through BT. Sorry. That's there problem to sort out. If their systems are that awful they need to sort it out. Not screw the genuine customers who cause no problems.

(And I know how bad they are from the time I accidentally hacked one of their servers. I didn't even mean too ! Their 2nd in command for all their systems acknowledged it was about 9/10 on the severity scale, and had I been a bad boy, I could have royally shafted them. When they looked at the exploit they even found several more..........)

If you use an older version of Outlook e.g. 2003 or before then this seems to be your only choice. For newer versions it seems they provide a yet another pain in the arse 'helper' application for you. Oh joy. See this http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18599

For Outlook Express (Does anyone still use it ? If so they should be shot) and similar see this : http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18740/kw/18740

With my linux server and Thunderbird I have had to temporarily route all my mail via another provider. Ironically that is Telefonica, who own BT !!!!


Your problems don't end there. There are new sending limits but they don't tell you about it when (if) you are notified the system is changing : http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/c/2048,2053,3883,2073/a_id/1241/kw/email%20sending%20limits

Ha, and another gotcha - they sent us a notification they were changing the account, but they sent the login details etc to the NEW email account. Great when you don't know the details..... idiots.

Anyway, so you get a bigger mailbox, but what they give with one hand they take with another....

The biggest problem:

1. using SMTP you can only send to a max of 50 people with a limit of 25mb per email
2. using Outlook Web Access it is 200 people and 10mb
3. No more 'catch all' mailboxes

So no more email newsletters. Well, you could always pay more I guess.

If you hit this page you will see it says :

"There’s a problem with your SMTP authentication.

If you're getting an error message saying Recipient not authorised, you may need to change the SMTP server for the mail account you're sending from."

Yeah, so how, as I said above, can you get your SMTP server to individually authorise each outgoing email ???

A few other little gotchas that you might like to think about.

Make sure that you at least login to your OWA account and turn off automatic junk just in case. I'm not sure what happens when you collect mail, but to be certain it doesn't just collect from your inbox, thereby missing a potentially important message it thought was junk, it is worth making sure that it all stays in your inbox.

Note that they also have there own junk filters which take out anything THEY consider to be junk without a by your leave and no notification. So if you have been wondering why you sometimes don't get an email, this could be the reason.


365 uptime? 99.9% (so they claim) up time = 364.635 days. So that isn't 24/7/365 is it ? And you can be sure that half a day it's down, you'll need it most.

365 has already had a number of notable outages. Personally I wouldn't trust any cloud system with my mail. I will never use gmail for anything other than junk. Same goes for M$. I have to use M$ at the minute but won't leave anything on their servers. And shortly I will have my own server running and be totally independently of them.

I'm sure I could go on. Certainly if you look in the help forums (which are heavily moderated) there has been a lot of unhappy customers.

Personally I am taking away ALL services from BT barring the line itself. Quite simply, I just don't trust them.

Good luck !

BT Office 365 email disaster and bullying.

For posterity here is the recent discussion I had at BT. It will undoubtedly be deleted  shortly so I thought I would preserve it.

===============================================================
Accepted Solution
Difference between Microsoft Office 365 and Business Email Lite

a week ago

Can someone please explain in simple terms what Business Email Lite is and what you get as part of that package.

The only page I can see on the support pages says Office 365 looks like this and lite looks like that.

I think I understand that The Office 365 for small business seems to be a fully web enabled cloud based system.  Which needs connected to the internet all the time to opertate.

I don't think I want or need that, but cannot locate a lit of facilities offered by "lite" to decide if it is too basic.  For example does "lite" allow me to set out of office? or is it just a call up and download "pop" system?


Cheers
===============================================================
[ New ]
Options

a week ago

Hi Midgebait,

The email lite account is just a basic pop account, however there are options to setup an out of office message and add contacts online or set the account up in outlook.

It does not allow messages to be setup as an IMAP account as in the inbox sent items, drafts etc are the same on all devices.


Thanks,

===============================================================
reetp
[ Edited ]
yesterday - last edited 3 hours ago by Moderator    DaveA

Same companies, same spyware, same .

Business Lite is just the cutdown version of the full Office 365 system. It basically just gives you an email address, and is used by M$ as a way to try and get you to take up the full on paid for Office 365 (kind of equivalent to Gmail + Google Docs)

Effectively BT have palmed the whole email system off to M$.

With the 'Lite' version, regarding connection, as a user nothing will change apart from your account settings. You can get to logon and pick up email as and when. The only time connectivity is an issue is if you use the full version to get documents etc etc. - guess there must be an 'offline' mode.

If you only access your emails via POP/SMTP then there will be few differences apart from SSL, and it's slow. And it will remove whatever mails it considers you don't want. Their choice, not yours.....

If you use the webmail system then you get a slightly different interface from the current version. It's the normal cutdown version of Exchange Online. What is a amazing is that it would appear that M$ normally charge about USD10 per user per month normally for this. Must be a helluva backhander passed back there someplace. I guess they will make their money by scouring your email (like BT has) and using that information to sell someone some more stuff someplace.
 
Cynical ? I would be. M$ don't so anything for nothing. And BT are not charging you any more..... so there must be money to be made someplace.

Me ? I don't need or trust M$ or Google any more than BT, and am moving all my email off their services to my own systems where they can't get to them so easily, though I believe that BT (and many other ISPs) scan ALL your internet traffic for their own purposes without your permission. The trouble is proving that they do.....



 ===============================================================

Hi,

Right your homework for the weekend is to post up evidence to back up all the accusations you've made in this post.  If you don't then it gets deleted on Monday when I come in.

I'm fed up with people posting opinionated rants without anything to give it ground to stand on.

 Don't like Microsoft?  Fine.  Don't like BT?  Fine.  But if you're going to make comments like the above then you better be prepared with something to even half prove it.

Dave

===============================================================

ReetP

>Right your homework for the weekend is to post up evidence to back up all the accusations you've made in this post.  If you don't then it gets deleted on Monday when I come in.

Don't work a full week then ? Easy life. Oh well, it'll be here for a day or two for people to read. Deleted Monday ? If it hadn't have been for the last remark I'd have not replied but I never respond well to bullies. So I had a quick 3 minute read around and here's the results. Want any more ?

M$ trying to get you to upgrade ? You ought to read your own website. I'm sure my mail box will be full of 'offers' to upgrade before long :

See here :

http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18557/c/2048,3872,3882

and the link here :

http://business.bt.com/domains-and-hosting/office-365/

Looking at your data ? As I said, it's VERY difficult to prove, as you well know. But it doesn't make me wrong. The BT Phorm mess was proof enough that they want to see what you are up too. They are corporations that want to make cash to pay their shareholders.

Anyway, have a read here :

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/how-microsoft-will-profit-off-webmail-without-reading-your-inbox/

"In response to questions from Wired on Wednesday, Microsoft did not elaborate on the specifics of how it deploys ads in Outlook.com. In her review Tuesday, Wired Gadgetlab reporter Alexandra Chang said the ads still seemed somewhat tailored to her: “When I was using Outlook.com, a bunch of gadget deals and one flower ad appeared, which seemed pretty accurate to my digital profile.” Bruce Hall, general manager of Windows Live and Internet Explorer, told her Outlook.com would rely on its newsletter filter, which grays out mailing-list messages you likely never read, to engage in some modest ad-targeting based on the newsletter’s sender."

And this :

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/hands-on-with-microsoft-outlook-com/

Now, I grant you that the current offering via BT doesn't appear to show any ads (I don't use it but had a quick login to see). But it doesn't mean that mails aren't read. And doesn't mean the data won't get used in one way or another. Or that we won't get ads later in one shape or form. (How come my old junk hotmail test account was full of junk despite the fact that I never gave out the address ???)

Then look at things such as browser Search plugins, 'handy' desktop 'help' systems et al. And they dont take ANY data from you ??? Sorry, but unfortunately I wasn't born yesterday. EVERYONE is at it. The ironic thing is that the government would LOVE access to the same data, but can't get it. But the coporations take it without a by your leave in most cases, sell it for profit, and you have NO right to do anything about it. Can't vote them out.

Would YOU like to advise us all how BT can afford to palm off all it's email to Microsoft without anyone paying ???? Just smell the money and you will find the reasons behind moves like this.

>I'm fed up with people posting opinionated rants without anything to give it ground to stand on.



Get over it. The company you work for are a complete bunch of amateurs. If I treated my customers the same way, I'd be out of business in 5 minutes. Fact. If they provided some decent customer service, then maybe we wouldn't be 'ranting' here (bearing in mind there isn't really anywhere else where we can publicly decry them that might get noticed by them). If it wasn't for losing a whole pile of my (costly) time with a changeover that wasn't wanted or needed which was poorly implemented and poorly supported, then I wouldn't have had reason to complain, would I ?

And being told I CAN'T complain just adds insult to injury.

>Don't like Microsoft?  Fine.  Don't like BT?  Fine.  But if you're going to make comments like the above then you better be prepared with something to even half prove it.



No I don't like either of them. I can avoid M$ but regrettably at the minute BT is my only option as a provider.

So I'll ask YOU again. How is BT affording to pay M$ bearing in mind that the normal cost for a basic account 'Office 365' account is around USD10 a month (or whatever they charge over here). My bill hasn't gone up, and nothing is for free.

So either BT are paying M$ and have a methiod of getting that money back, or M$ are doing it for free and using the data for their own purposes.

Or have you got another explanation ?

BT Office 365 upgrade disaster

Well, today BTs planned upgrade to Office 365 started. What a complete and utter bucket of shite, both the upgrade and the software.

At about 2pm we stopped receiving any email.

After sitting like a pillock for a while, I started to have a look around and realised that lots of people seemed to be having problems.

I contacted BT on their upgrade line, but the people there are CLUELESS about what is going on, and can't do anything to help.

Apparently I should have received an email about the upgrade. Nope. I had one originally advising me that it was going to happen, but nothing subsequent to that. Apparently it would give me the new server details. Nope. More advice about that email. "BUT I DIDN'T FUCKING GET IT. GET IT ???????"

I had logged into my account a week or so back to see what was happening and there were a load of Office 365 upgrade 'problems' e.g. short passwords - that needed 'resolving'. I did that (wonder what would have happened if I hadn't ?) and all seemed well. Until today that is.

I figured that the quickest route to solving this would be to change the DNS settings and push all mail for my domain to my own server and cut BT out of the loop entirely. Except. BT, of course.

My web server is already pointed elsewhere so I should be able to do the same with my mail server. Nope. Seems that they have forgotten that they manage this domain as there is nothing in the domain control panel. Pricks. Probably disabled as they change all their DNS stuff for their mail servers which is probably where all the fuck ups are in the first place.

I phoned BT again as I now want to scream. The next advisor was as useless as the first.He could do nothing about my email, or my domain names - phone another number which had closed for the night.......

I eventually lost my temper with him. And he eventually, very kindly, cut me off. Prick. This is our livelihood, not some game.

Anyway, for those of you stupid enough to entrust your email with BT (or actually it will be with those thieving, out sourced, bastards Microsoft) your new server settings that you should have been given are as follows :

 

https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/help_need_a_genius_saviour_at_my_wits_end_now

incoming POP server: pop.outlook.com
port: 995
user name: yourname@btconnect.com
Connection security: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Normal password

Outgoing server: smtp.outlook.com
port: 587 (or, possibly 25)
Connection security: STARTTLS
Authentication: Normal password
user name: yourname

You may need to delete the old password in Tools/Options/Security/Passwords/Saved Passwords, restart TB, and enter the correct one when prompted at the next connection.

And another bit regarding possible mailbox limits. I could easily break this limit on our newsletter account.....

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/small-businesses-beware-the-office-365-fine-print/4151

As I don't want Microsoft looking though all my emails, I am now going to do what I should have a long time ago which is to get the lot sent straight to my server and have a fallover/backup MX server in case it goes offline.

That is if I can ever get control of my own friggin domains.

BT I fucking HATE YOU ..........