Time to move on from Orange methinks

Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Subject ‘test’, Account: ‘Email’, Server: ’smtp.orangehome.co.uk’, Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10053, Error Number: 0×800CCC0F

9 times out of 10 emails won’t send, but occasionally they do go. I have experimented with changing my sender address (now I am on Vista Windows mail puts all the accounts together) and occasionally this helps. Also if I unplug and replug the speedtouch it sometimes helps.

ps I am receiving mail ok now I have been on webmail and deleted 5000 odd spam emails to part spoof addresses using the second half of my freeserve address. eg xyz@myaddress.co.uk

Failed to send mail via Outlook Express (pop error)

Reads mail OK

Fixed problem - Change mail server from - pop.wanadoo.co.uk to pop.orangehome.co.uk

also change smtp - smtp.wanadoo.co.uk to smtp.orangehome.co.uk

Pity Orange haven’t E-mail everyone to warn of the change!!

P.s. I’m a service Guy - and not daft enough to go with a ISP like ORANGE!!

If Orange tell you that if there are two green lights the ADSL modem is OK. This is not always the case!!

Problem - Cannot get to all websites - Not even the Orange home page. But can get to sub pages.
Ping tests OK. Email OK.

Having spent 2 weeks talking to Gupta in India (Orange help line), Engineers in the Uk etc, we found
that by changing the Speedtouch 330 for the newer version (black square one), we are back with a full service.

It seems that the Orange tech people haven’t a clue, and reluctant to give out replacement ADSL modems.

I am unable to receive my emails. It is driving me nuts. I seem to receive all the spam emails that get sent to my orange email address but for some reason i am unable to send any emails. Ive had different errors and have called orange and waited 30-40minutes on the telephone to end up speaking to someone 5000 miles away that does not even know what smtp server means. Its disgraceful. i’m going to look at your workaround now. I am on a friends computer because mine is too slow - orange again. hopefully ill get something sorted. Thank you to you guys for letting me have a rant.

I’ve also been discovering that emails to Hotmail etc. just don’t get through. They don’t bounce, they don’t turn up, nothing at all.

Furthermore, the maximum number of recipients per outgoing email has been lowered from around 70 (annoying) to 20 (hair-tearingly frustrating). I rang them up to find out why, and someone from some call-centre in India told me ‘it is because of spam. This is our policy.’ Surely it’s obvious that restricting the ability of bona-fide paid-up loyal customer to send emails out for, say, business purposes (as in my case, to a list of around 400 people who have all agreed to receive emails from me and each of whom, upon requesting to be removed from my list, would receive no more mails from me) is no solution whatsoever. The correct solution, in my opinion, is to move to a culture of identity verifiability and digital signatures, so that your emails can be traced back to you. (Although that still doesn’t help a great deal against viruses that hijack your personal email.)

To get round these problems, I’ve tried setting up a local SMTP server on my Mac. Unfortunately, they block all my mail. Not only do they block the usual port 25 from my machine, but it seems that using a different port doesn’t help because they’ve blocked all mail traffic that hasn’t authenticated with their server. I can sort of understand that this is ‘for security’, but it locks all their customers into using their SMTP server no matter how incompetently they manage it, and I believe makes it impossible to use even a subscription-based external SMTP service (which is perfectly legitimate). (Though then I don’t quite understand how the gmail or ‘hotmail premium’ fixes worked…)

I’ve just moved house, and am having the connection moved over. They claim it takes 15 working days, which they blame on BT. For all I know, that might be true (does anyone have experience with moving house with other broadband providers?), however I asked them for a number for dial-up access to use in the meantime, which they did. Of course I should have checked the number, but the horrifying truth of their incompetence never occurred to me. I have just realised (after using the dial-up for some 50 hours or so) that it’s not a free number as you would expect with ‘Anytime’, but their ‘Pay-as-you-go’ number. Surely if I’m paying more for Broadband that I can’t use than I would be paying for ‘Anytime’, I should have the Anytime service AT LEAST! As a bare minimum! As a ’sorry we’re so crap, but it won’t be too bad if you use this free number while you pay for broadband you can’t use’. But apparently not. It seems I have to pay through the nose to continue to use my account.

Naturally I will be changing provider as soon as I can. I wouldn’t mind so much them just being utterly incompetent, because then I could find ways around the problems myself. But the restrictions they impose on their loyal paying customers are intolerable.

regards,
James

(sorry about ranting a bit!)