I.T. time - NTL & \'pop\' mail a question
 

My ISP, NTLWorld...seem to have been playing around in the NE and other areas with accounts lately....

Being greedy I have 3 email accounts that I gather using Outlook express.

Within the last month there have been about 6 seperate times when I have lost some incoming Email for a few days at a time. I believe NTL are the cause of this.

Here is my reasoning....Outlook Express gathers my Hotmail Email without any problem - Hotmail I understand, uses a HTTP server rather than the POP servers that NTL and Yahoo seem to need (hense my NTL & Yahoo mail dont get through BUT, I can still log into the Email via the webpages instead).

Am I right in thinking if NTL are doing something to their mail servers then I wont get anything that also needs a POP server or is there much more to it than this????

I've done the important thing though and changed my Email addy here in the DSC to my Hotmail address so that the priority stuff gets through :lol:

Just another hair pulling event over for a while - hopefully - as things seem to be resolved again!

Frank

[Edited on 25-11-2004 by Iconic944ss]

Morning Frank.

If NTL are messing around with their POP servers then you won't be able to access it. You could try pinging the POP server when you can't get mail to see if it's even available. You may still be able to send mail because most ISP's host the SMTP service on another box.

As long as you have web access you should still be able to get at your hotmail, whether you access it via outlook or a browser.

I don't use NTL (I'm Telewest at home, about to be upgraded to 1MB for free :D ) so I can't say whether they have been having outages but I would assume they would have a website listing their current outages - I know Telewest do and aren't they really the same animal?

TP is right...

For email like NTL etc you use POP3 (post office protocol) you need the address of your POP3 server, probably something like pop3.ntl.com this will be on NTL help pages, you also need a username and password setup within OE to access these messages for downloading, this will be the same username and password you're currently using for their webmail.

Sounds to me like they may have changed the addresses etc, so check the website.

I don't know off the top of my head whether you can do this within OE but from Outlook you can check your account by automatically sending test messages, and then appearing back in your mailbox.

I'm having similar probs intermittently with NTL.
This time it's because they're messing about their mail servers...

Service status can be found here:
http://www.ntl-isp.ntl.com/ServiceStatus/

Ditch IE6 use Mozilla

NTL have been upgrading the email servers over the last few weeks to install anti-spam and anti-virus systems. That might be the cause of your outage, Frank.

I work for NTL btw... so no flaming or I might take it personally! :lol:

I've always been happy with the NTL BB service (especially as BT seem to be upgrading our exchange in the NEXT millenium) but, getting hold of one of those rare NTL advisors to actually TALK to someone is getting to be a thing of legends these days.