Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

[#1]

Hi,

I have a good friend who was struggling with a slow 2Mbps ADSL, and has just moved to BT FTTP, he would have stayed with Plusnet but as PN do not do FTTP that was not possible.

He had been promised that he could keep is old F9.co.uk email addresses, and as he had been a customer for so long he would not be charged.

Now he has moved, incoming emails work, but outgoing do not. My guess is that Outlook needs to be setup to use SMTP weatherization, but I can't find any setting for F9 servers.

Can anyone help/ He has had a support ticket open for 2 weeks but is not getting anywhere.

Thanks

Tim

[#2]

Force 9 smtp server is relay.force9.net, he’ll probably need his username & password.

[#3]

@timwj As you do not specify which 'Outlook' version you are  talking about (there are many flavours) the best thing to do is search for 'SMTP authentication Outlook <whichever version>'

[#4]

Thanks for your help and replies.

We had a Teamviewer session last night and I setup up his emails with SMTP auth and everything is now working.

The odd thing is that this morning Plusnet support eventually got back to him via a phone call and said that it cannot be done! 

We just hope his email accounts are not now deleted.

Tim

[#5]

Without being too cruel, some PN support people haven't been here that long - I bet some of them don't even know what 'F9' is.

[#6]

To be fair, the early (couple of years ago) 'free' mail accounts couldn't use authenticated smtp since they weren't 'real' accounts. The later ones are now 'generic services' accounts and have full access

[#7]

True, @MisterW , but if the OPs friend has 'only just' swapped, he should have a generic account?

[#8]

He will have.

[#9]

Which free email accounts were they ? Those of us that were moved from Force 9 to Plusnet  did had proper email accounts, still in use today as no Plusnet alternatives were offered..

[#10]

Up until a couple of years ago, there was no formal method by which people could retain their email accounts when leaving PlusNet. There was a work-around which enabled mail to be retained but since this did not have a broadband account username/password it wasn't possible to authenticate to the smtp server. More recently a formal mechanism of the 'generic services' account has been introduced which enables authentication.

[#11]

I understand now, thanks....

[#12 · Accepted solution]

Long ago there were different types of mail only accounts; free ‘Generic Services’ and chargeable ‘Plusnet Mail’ at £1.06 per month. The free ones didn’t have access to our outgoing mail server as it was deemed you’d have to pay for that through a ‘Plusnet Mail’ account.

I’m generalising when I say Plusnet Mail as there are also Force9 Mail and FreeOnline Mail accounts which behave in the same way at the same monthly cost.

In September 2018, we made our email and domain services free of charge which meant that we wouldn’t bill the £1.06 on the once chargeable mail accounts, but keeping our outgoing mail server still available.

Not long afterwards we made a change to the inherently free Generic Services accounts so that they’d now too have access to our outgoing mail server, levelling the playing field for everybody.

@timwj Could you drop me a PM with his username or ticket ID? I’m happy to take a closer look and make sure everything’s as it should be our side.

[#13]

I’d love to know how this was resolved.
I’ve been reliant on my f9 email for 20 years, so would love to be able to retain it, if or when I move to an FTTP provider.
Any guidance, gratefully received.

[#14]

@Petestrix Easy - when/if you make the move, just contact PN by phone, advise them you are leaving, but wish to retain you email account. You may lose it for two or three days while the transfer goes through as it is a manual process, but that's all there is to it.

[#15]

Thanks John.
I’ve been told that’s possible if it is a plusnet email account but not if it’s a force9 email account.
Pete