On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:46:06 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Hi All,

Sorry i've been a bit quiet, I have been listening.

My wife is being driven round the bend by BT Broadband toyal yahoos or
whatever they are called this month who every so often change someting
(like the name of their outgoing mail server! Without giving any
warning to their customers, or even to their outsourced Indian sub-
continent support droids.

The cynic in me would say that this policy will make them millions
from calls to their support lines!

Anyways, I have managed to get outgoing mail going a couple of weeks
ago by making sure Eudora was using the BT Internet account to login
to the smtp server, and i've fixed it again today by spending half an
hour in a maze of twisty little passages all different which is bt
yahoo's website and "verifying" my wifes connectfree account. I did
ring Connectfree's support at one point, but was very disappointed to
find that instead of the very knowledgeable northern lad i'd gotten
last time, I got someone in the punjab who answered the phone as
Tiscali tech support :+((

Anyways, the question!

At one point the BT support droid said "well in that case, Connectfree
will have to provide you with your own smtp server" Which got me to
thinging (OK, three questions)

1. Would running our own smtp server on one of our XP workstations
protect us from any further stupidity on the part of BT.

2. Would it just work with BT's network without any configuration on
their part, or would it open up another can of worms WRT getting it
verified or whatever.

3. Would I have to get Connectfree or any other organisation to
reconfigure anything?

4. How difficult is it to set up an SMTP server?

5. If it's worth going ahead does anyone here have any recommendations
for a particular product (pref free, definately to run on XP (yes, I
know i'd be better off building a lunix box, but the management won't
allow any more boxes in the house (no, not even in the loft or the
shed))).

OK, 5 questions :+))
As others have said, get your own domain name and a seperate email
provider. I use Heart Internet
(http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/index.shtml)
good prices, great support (including telephone) and they provide POP
access, a web client (if you're away from home) and their own smtp
server for outgoing email. They also do good web hosting packages if
your interested.
David