A Lament: BT Business 2MB and a Mac Apache setup

I checked my speed today between 3pm and 8pm and it has never been
better than 450K/240K down and up.

I have also had issues with the BT mailbox which crashed, and (without
getting too technical) is now locked as being the property of a
secondary user. It works, after a fashion, but does not inspire
confidence. BT say it works and there's nothing they can do about the
fact that all my mail is labelled up (in the webmail Inbox on mouseover)
as belonging to a secondary user. There's a flag stuck somewhere, but
they insist that I define "flag" before pursuing the matter.

Only a lunatic would press on for an 8MB upgrade, which I understand
locks one in for a year, and who would trust them with hosting?
I'm running essential mail here on the Mac server on my machine on a
fixed IP, with Sendmail and the Terminal, and just using the BT mailbox
with Mail.app for forwarding secondary user mail.

As per usual the problem is that the domain is currently tied to the
fixed IP provided by BT, which in turn is locked on to the phone number.
It's a load of paperwork to shift the domain over to another address,
and I am sure that BT will put up a struggle. Unless you do this stuff
every day it means relearning it each time.

Anyway, am I getting a good deal for £400 a year? Is there any point in
moving? It's the upstream I'm interested in improving. It would be nice
to get 450K upstream for a small site, or alternatively a reliable host.

Surely BT is too big and anonymous.

Is there someone small and efficient who would just do the BIND stuff
and provide Broadband for this type of money? The ideal thing is a
charitable nerd who will hold your hand and do the transfer for you.
Someone you can trust ..Does such a person exist?

Moan, grumble, moan. Thank you for reading this lament.

hj wrote:

> I have also had issues with the BT mailbox which crashed, and (without
> getting too technical) is now locked as being the property of a
> secondary user.

Property of a secondary user? Is it linked to your current ADSL
account or not? If it is, then if it's a secondary user as opposed to
the primary that makes absolutely no difference to the mailbox itself
and if it bothers you you can ask for it to be changed....

> It works, after a fashion, but does not inspire
> confidence. BT say it works and there's nothing they can do about the
> fact that all my mail is labelled up (in the webmail Inbox on mouseover)

Are the user details wrong for that mailbox then? When email is sent
from yourself does it appear with the correct details at the other end?

> as belonging to a secondary user. There's a flag stuck somewhere, but
> they insist that I define "flag" before pursuing the matter.

Flag is not a technical term I recognise either.... try again
describing what you are seeing?

> As per usual the problem is that the domain is currently tied to the
> fixed IP provided by BT, which in turn is locked on to the phone number.

If the domain is hosted by BT business BB then you get a domain
maintenance console where you can change your domain records yourself
or their is a DNS team who can do it for you either over the phone or
via dnsforms.co.uk

> Anyway, am I getting a good deal for £400 a year?

If you're using less than 10GB a month regrade to the lite package

> Is there any point in moving? It's the upstream I'm interested in improving. It would be nice
> to get 450K upstream for a small site, or alternatively a reliable host.

I would never host any commercial site small or not on a xDSL
connection. Something for testing or development maybe at a push,
anything else would go to a dedicated website host.

Regards

William MacLeod

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> hj wrote:
>
>> I have also had issues with the BT mailbox which crashed, and (without
>> getting too technical) is now locked as being the property of a
>> secondary user.
>
> Property of a secondary user? Is it linked to your current ADSL
> account or not? If it is, then if it's a secondary user as opposed to
> the primary that makes absolutely no difference to the mailbox itself
> and if it bothers you you can ask for it to be changed....
>
>> It works, after a fashion, but does not inspire
>> confidence. BT say it works and there's nothing they can do about the
>> fact that all my mail is labelled up (in the webmail Inbox on mouseover)
>
> Are the user details wrong for that mailbox then? When email is sent
> from yourself does it appear with the correct details at the other end?
>
>> as belonging to a secondary user. There's a flag stuck somewhere, but
>> they insist that I define "flag" before pursuing the matter.
>
> Flag is not a technical term I recognise either.... try again
> describing what you are seeing?
>
Probably you're right, I am being pedantic. All the messages that arrive
in my mailbox, are "labelled" wrongly, (ie when you hold the mouse over
the message title in the Inbox, the target address contains the name of
the secondary user, rather than my name. But maybe I should be more
forgiving, more robust.

>> As per usual the problem is that the domain is currently tied to the
>> fixed IP provided by BT, which in turn is locked on to the phone number.
>
> If the domain is hosted by BT business BB then you get a domain
> maintenance console where you can change your domain records yourself
> or their is a DNS team who can do it for you either over the phone or
> via dnsforms.co.uk
>
No the domain is hosted by me on the Mac box under the stairs. They just
provide the fixed IP address on the line. So I have to do the DNS stuff
myself.

>> Anyway, am I getting a good deal for £400 a year?
>
> If you're using less than 10GB a month regrade to the lite package

Basically I dread trying to get through to them. And I also dread
waiting to see whether they get it right. This is why I am reluctant to
get involved deeper with BT.
>
>> Is there any point in moving? It's the upstream I'm interested in improving. It would be nice
>> to get 450K upstream for a small site, or alternatively a reliable host.
>
> I would never host any commercial site small or not on a xDSL
> connection. Something for testing or development maybe at a push,
> anything else would go to a dedicated website host.
>
I take that to be good advice. If I am serious about running a site then
I should anticipate enough traffic to require a proper delivery system.
You are right.

> Regards
>
> William MacLeod
>

Cheers.

hj wrote:

> All the messages that arrive
> in my mailbox, are "labelled" wrongly, (ie when you hold the mouse over
> the message title in the Inbox, the target address contains the name of
> the secondary user, rather than my name.

Ah OK, log on via btbroadbandoffice.com to your account, go in to
manage users, select the secondary user mailbox in question, click
change contact details and update details accordingly. That's where
you change the details linked to each mailbox.

> Basically I dread trying to get through to them. And I also dread
> waiting to see whether they get it right. This is why I am reluctant to
> get involved deeper with BT.

Sounds like you've had a rather bad experiance before! The 8Mb regrade
process is now fairly painless for most people :-)

Regards

William MacLeod