Hello there...not sure I've joined the correct forum to ask this question. I have done some searching around the net to answer it, but come up a bit thin...Anyway, about 4 years ago I moved into my present house and decided not to connect the standard BT line, but go with a mobile wifi gadget from the mobile network Three. I also have a SIM only deal with them for my phone. I just couldn't justify the cost and I don't stream TV etc as I prefer to enjoy other things instead of slumped in front of the TV when home. The first few months was slightly frustrating, as the smtp settings from Three,were a little vague, but eventually sorted. Everything has been fine up until the middle of February this year when they sent me an email to say that they are 'improving their email security and switching off port 25 on their smtp sever (smtp-mbb.three.co.uk). Their email reads:
"It’s time to change to a new, more secure route for emails
Our technical team has recently been checking email services on Three to make sure they’re safe and up to speed. We see that you’re currently sending emails using an old SMTP port. And because Three doesn’t support this anymore, we’re going to switch it off on 19th February 2018 to make sure everyone is using a more secure (SSL) connection.
No need to worry though – simply follow the steps below to change your outgoing email settings:
· In Outgoing mail (SMTP) change the current old port 25 to 465, 485 or 587
· You may also have to tick the box next to: ‘This server requires a secure connection (SSL)’
· That should be it. But if none of these port numbers work, ask your email provider for a list of port numbers and settings they do support.
It’s really important to update the settings as soon as possible, or your email service won’t work from 19th February 2018. If there’s anything you’re not sure about, please get in touch. Otherwise, we hope you continue sending and receiving emails as easily as before."
...and the above text is the true text from the email. I then proceeded to change the settings on my Thunderbird email client on my Ubuntu laptop and found that nothing worked. I phoned 'Three' on 2 occasions to resolve this and they basically told me, that they have turned off the smtp service completely and I was to use my email accounts own smtp secure server settings, so my yahoo works okay, but my plusnet and free-online email accounts no longer work. I was a paying customer of plusnet some years ago, but after my divorce, plusnet was cancelled as the house was sold, but I retained the email accounts. Plusnet informed me that if I paid a small payment of around £1 a month this would allow me access to their secure smtp, which I'm happy to pay, but just wondered what other people thought of this development and whether other mobile wifi networks, Vodafone, EE, O2 etc are doing the same thing, or are they not proper ISPs where traditionally they supply an outgoing email smtp service. Sorry if this is a little long for my first post...
Happy surfing...
"It’s time to change to a new, more secure route for emails
Our technical team has recently been checking email services on Three to make sure they’re safe and up to speed. We see that you’re currently sending emails using an old SMTP port. And because Three doesn’t support this anymore, we’re going to switch it off on 19th February 2018 to make sure everyone is using a more secure (SSL) connection.
No need to worry though – simply follow the steps below to change your outgoing email settings:
· In Outgoing mail (SMTP) change the current old port 25 to 465, 485 or 587
· You may also have to tick the box next to: ‘This server requires a secure connection (SSL)’
· That should be it. But if none of these port numbers work, ask your email provider for a list of port numbers and settings they do support.
It’s really important to update the settings as soon as possible, or your email service won’t work from 19th February 2018. If there’s anything you’re not sure about, please get in touch. Otherwise, we hope you continue sending and receiving emails as easily as before."
...and the above text is the true text from the email. I then proceeded to change the settings on my Thunderbird email client on my Ubuntu laptop and found that nothing worked. I phoned 'Three' on 2 occasions to resolve this and they basically told me, that they have turned off the smtp service completely and I was to use my email accounts own smtp secure server settings, so my yahoo works okay, but my plusnet and free-online email accounts no longer work. I was a paying customer of plusnet some years ago, but after my divorce, plusnet was cancelled as the house was sold, but I retained the email accounts. Plusnet informed me that if I paid a small payment of around £1 a month this would allow me access to their secure smtp, which I'm happy to pay, but just wondered what other people thought of this development and whether other mobile wifi networks, Vodafone, EE, O2 etc are doing the same thing, or are they not proper ISPs where traditionally they supply an outgoing email smtp service. Sorry if this is a little long for my first post...
Happy surfing...























