Newbie mail setup

[#1]

Hi...I'm new to Plusnet and trying to set up my mail using Thunderbird 3 on Linux. I haven't yet managed to connect.
I can see my default mailbox in Manage My Mail. The 'destination' column is empty.
Thunderbird is set up to point to
mail.plus.net
POP
port 110
connection security: none
authentication: password transmitted insecurely
When I try to connect I get: Sending of password did not succeed. Mail server mail.plus.net responded: Temporary problem, please try again later.
When I try to get Webmail I get ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server.
Am I doing something wrong, or is this something I need to raise with support?
Thanks,

[#2]

Try sending an email from a non PlusNet account to this account - sometimes this is needed to correctly create mailbox.
Otherwise, double check settings from:
http://www.plus.net/support/email/setup/tbird3.shtml
JymboP

[#3]

zazzi - To quote from Airplane: You picked a bad day to try and setup your email for the first time!!!  
PlusNet are having eMail issues - hopefully temporary.  Best to do NOTHING until these message boards show everything has been back to normal for a while!