Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

[#1]

"What I have done to get around this problem is to create my own free GMail account, set it up in my email client with a return address of my Plus Net email account. Instant delivery and reply to my PN account."

What is the advantage of a reply to your PN account? Why not bin the PN account and use Gmail only?

[#2]

Because PN is my published email address. For emails to non GMail accounts, I use the PN SMTP server relay.plus.net

[#3]

Yet people have to reply to your Gmail account?

[#4]

No because in the Outlook settings for my GMail account, I put in the reply address as my PN address.

[#5]

Got it!

For an average Joe like myself, it might be easier to just transition to Gmail and tell friends/banks/businesses of the change?

[#6]

I am really grateful. I'll have a go at setting up my gmail account in Outlook. I hope I can remember how to do this. If I have trouble I'll come back and ask. A task for this afternoon. I will have to do the same for my wife's account.

I'ts not straightforward if you only do something like this every 2 years or so.

[#7]

This may help:-https://www.thewindowsclub.com/configure-microsoft-outlook-gmail-manual-settings

You will also need to set the POP3 option in your GMail settings.

[#8]

Perfectly sensible for you guys to try to find workarounds in the short term, but by no means all PlusNet's customers will be technically proficient enough to do this. And anyway it bypasses the central issue that Plusnet markets an email service (until recently a very good service) that now has a huge flaw. One or two of you have speculated that the problem may be insoluble without Google's cooperation, but I still feel strongly that it's for PlusNet to provide us with the true story. So I renew my request to PlusNet: please post on this forum a no-holds-barred situation report. We're all grown-ups and can cope if the news is not as we would wish it to be, but it's not nice to be kept in the dark.

[#9]

I agree. I have had a PN email account and broadband for 16 years and until this debacle all worked well. As you say we need honesty. I suspect IT politics play a part in all this.

[#10]

And anyway it bypasses the central issue that Plusnet markets an email service (until recently a very good service) that now has a huge flaw

Can you please expand on that - explain the "flaw" in PlusNet's email system?  Empirical testing has shown...

• Emails sent to PAID for Gmail accounts from any Plusnet hosted mail address exhibit no issue
• Emails sent to FREE Gmail accounts from own domain email addresses hosted on Plusnet servers exhibit no issue
• Only email sent using @myaccount.plus.com to free Gmail accounts, encounter issue manufactured by Google

The same service doing the same thing is treated differently depending solely on if Google charge their customer a fee for using Gmail.  Please explain how that is a "huge flaw" in PlusNet's email service?

That is not to suggest that some aspects of it could be done differently, but such are not flaws.

[#11]

Hi Townman,

You've shared your assessment of the underlying problem more than once - and I for one appreciate your posts. Your theory sounds plausible to me, though I'm not personally qualified to judge if it's correct. Either way, I feel you're letting our friends at PlusNet off the hook a bit. From the point of view of an ordinary user, there most definitely is a flaw in the service provided. Whoever's to blame, what once worked now doesn't! Whatever the underlying technical problem, it is surely for PlusNet to explain the position to its customers and to come clean about what might or might not be possible to resolve it. It's a long time since PlusNet usefully posted on this forum to say they were working on the issue. It doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for an update. If it's true that Google's unwillingness to cooperate is at the bottom of this, there are ways of making this clear without appearing to go to war with a fellow provider.

[#12]

Townman,

Plusnet's email service now won't work correctly with one of the biggest email recipients. That is how PN is failing.

[#13]

Hi Peter,

I am by no means letting Plusnet off the hook - you have no awareness of the grief we are trying to apply within the SU group.  However there are a few things to note here...

1. Google have been asked (by both Plusnet as a service provider and myself as a user) to provide insight to the issue - they have not even acknowledged that they have an issue
2. Plusnet are not going to come here and point fingers at another supplier
3. Evidence strongly suggests that the issue is entirely within Goggle's operational model … yet users seek to suggest that the flaw is in PlusNet's mail service … presenting no evidence to support such assertions

My comments are intended to manage expectations here.  How many of those lambasting Plusnet on this matter has thought to go do similar to Google?  There are a number of other ISPs suffering the same issues at the hands of Google … yet Google remain steadfastly silent on the issue.  Their tangential suggestions of potential mitigations are on examination flawed for the service works fine to paid for Gmail accounts without such mitigations.  As noted the implementation of those concepts is not trivial and has nothing to do with email.

The change (from when it used to work) you refer to was made by Google earlier this year.

[#14]

If you can suggest a reliable way for me to contact Google and complain, I'll happily do so - and I imagine others active on this forum would be willing to do the same. But I still think PlusNet, whom I pay for this service, should provide honest updates about the prospects, even if they are rather negative. It's perfectly possible to explain that the problem is outside their control (and unlikely to be resolved in the near future, if that's the case) without libelling Google directly,. When it comes to customer service, silence is never a good strategy.

[#15]

This business is very odd. I have just sent an email from my PN email account to my FREE Gmail account and delivery was instantaneous.