Topic: BT Yahoo!

BT and Yahoo have signed a long term extension of their strategic broadband partnership, which began in September 2003.

As a result all new and existing BT Broadband customers twill be able to take advantage of the the 'Yahoo! broadband experience' as from October 24th.
All BT of Broadband customers across all four of their broadband options will now receive services including a premium level radio station, access to the Web's largest catalogue of music videos streamed at higher bit rates, a personalized broadband homepage with access to more than 750,000 content sources from across the Web, award-winning premium e-mail with industry-leading spam protection with 2 gigabytes of storage for primary accounts.

It has also announced changes to it's range of packages, BT Broadband Option 1 will now provide access to a premium Yahoo! broadband experience and a full range of leading tools and services with the price remaining at £17.99 a month.
A new package, BT Broadband Option 2, is priced at £22.99 a month. This will additionally offer a wireless router from just £25 and enhanced security including PC anti-virus and firewall software for further protection. Options 3 and 4 will offer a wireless router for free along with other enhanced features.

It also seems that the existing iTunes promotion is also included, details at BT.

Over a year ago, we first revealed how BTYahoo customers were facing impending capping of their usage of their broadband. Since the announcement, the introduction of such restrictions has been delayed. Now, finally, after over a year of bad reactions from its customers, BTYahoo have announced that its to stop vigorously enforcing any capping, and its scrapped the concept of charging for excessive usage all together.

Detailed on BT's 'holding page, BT are not totally removing restricted usage all together, but rather taking a more relaxed approach.

Firstly, the monthly caps have been increased (up to 40GB for its top tier BT Yahoo! Broadband, charged at £29.99 per month) and secondly, users who occasionally drift over the 40GB limit will not face penalty. Those who consistently exceed this limit, will, in BT's words, be contacted about moving to a more appropriate product. Quite what product someone on the top tier option could move too without leaving the ISP is bewildering though.

One final conundrum comes from the lack of any facility for subscribers to check their current usage. Rumour on the grapevine is that BT's metering system has been plagued with problems, and could form part of the reason that BT are scrapping the facility all together.

Emails detailing the change are expected to have been sent to subscribers by the time this article goes to publication.

BT are offering even more deals to new customers, this time is a 10% discount on  clothing, towels, DVDs  and other items when customers visit Wimbledon's online shop.

The deal is to highlight BT's continued partnership with the All England Lawn Tennis Club, who run the tournament. The deal will enable BT Broadband and BT Yahoo! Broadband customers to be able to view up tto six hours of live streaming broadcasts every day as well as highlights, interviews and archives during the championship. Non BT users can also access the service, but at a cost of a one off £7 charge, users should log into http://www.wimbledon.org

Now all tennis fanciers have to do is find home delivery of strawberries and cream!

As we reported a few days ago BT are going to continue with the offer of reduced broadband costs for the first three months to new customers.

The savings of up to £3 per month, detailed below, will be available is users sign up between 21 April and 2 June 2005, and after the first three months the prices will resort to the usual tariff.

• BT Broadband Basic (up to 1Mb) down from £17.99 to £15.99
• BT Broadband (up to 2Mb) - down from £24.99 to £22.99
• BT Yahoo! Broadband (up to 2Mb) - down from £26.99 to £24.99
• BT Yahoo! Broadband (up to 2Mb) - down from £29.99 to £27.99

All the products will continue to offer free connection and a router when purchased online.

Following on from this mornings earlier story, a number of readers have contacted us informing that BT are separately offering existing BT Yahoo dial up users an upgrade to a 2Mbps broadband service (where available of course) at a discounted price for 6 months, at which point, normal, current charging resumes. Users can elect from 2Mbps (15GB) for £15.99, or the ISPs 2Mbps 30GB service for £18.99. The discount comes as a credit of £66 to the subscribers 2nd bill.

Its not clear if this is a global promotion to all of BT's dial up users, as some readers suggest some authentication is being done on the BT Yahoo upgrade web site, in order to accept the offer.

Back in November 2004, it was announced that BTYahoo were to tempt its dial up subscriber base with the proposition of cheap 512Kbps broadband, priced at a then, fairly competitive £15.99, a similar price point to the users existing dial up service. At the proposed end of the promotion, users had the choice of continuing their 512Kbps service at the current normal price, or dropping to a 150Kbps, 1GB/Month service at £15.99 price. 6 months later, and as we near the end of the promotion, rumour is that BTYahoo! are set to announce an extension of the offer.

We've not received any official reason for the extention (even the news that there is an extension isn't official - yet!), although one source identified "systems issues [...] preventing the full deployment of Anytime Plus speed restrictions". We'll take that to mean, BTYahoo can't drop users speed from 512Kbps to 150Kbps then.

Emails (all 60,000+ of them) are expected to be sent out to relevant users early next week (25th to 27th April 2005), unsurprisingly citing ‘Good News, your trial of BT Yahoo! Broadband has been extended".

BTYahoo have delayed the introduction of their usage caps until August & September 2005, according to sources.

Rumoured since January 2004, the impending caps were originally scheduled for introduction from "early 2005" - although lately, this was believed to be from May 2005.

Customers who signed up for BTYahoo Broadband 17th February 2005, who see their service capped from 1st August, whilst customers who signed up before the 17th will be capped from 1st September 2005. No official reason has been given for the postponement.

The delay in bringing in the capping is also confirmed on the following BT page.

BTYahoo! will increase the already generous 250MB email storage available to it's free customers.

In an obvious bit to match a google Gmail account it is increasing storage to a massive 1GB, which should be plenty for most users. The increase will be effective from April, with users automatically seeing the change.

Following todays earlier article announcing BT retail ISPs intention to upgrade all its customers, its also rumoured that a price reduction of £3 for 3 months for some, if not all, of its broadband customers is also in the offering.

At the moment, we're aware that 1Mbit customers will pay the slightly reduced £27.00 for 3 months (starting either February or March, depending if you've already been billed yet) - saving just short of a tenner over the 3 months. Hopefully, consumers on other speeds are also to get this bonus from BT.

As widely expected, BT Retail ISPs are today announcing the free speed upgrade of all their customers, following suit of many of its rivals. The upgrade represents an complete overhaul to both the BTYahoo and BTOpenworld Business product portfolio.

For the main, all consumer and business customers will be upgraded to 2Mbps where the line is capable, which could see 4x increase in downstream rate for those customers on 512kbps products. The only exception to the rule is that BT Broadband Basic customers on 512k will get a two-fold increase in their downstream rate, to 1Mbps. The upstream rate remains unchanged at 256kbps.

As said, the changes reveal a complete overhaul of the BT Retail ISP offerings for both businesses and consumers. BTYahoo Broadband and BTOpenworld Broadband's new product line up is shown in the tables below.

For the consumers (prices include VAT) ...

... and for Business customers (prices exclude VAT) ...

The new speeds take effect from 17th February 2005 for all new consumer customers, and 1st April for new business customers. Existing customers can expect to be migrated from the same dates (we've checked, and its no April fools joke!). The change will effect all BTYahoo and BTOpenworld Business customers.

Worthy of note, is that there is no change in the line capability to receive a 2Mbps downstream service, which continues at 43dB.

The news follows our article earlier this week detailing a bit more info on BT Retails 'usage allowance'.

For those 512k or 1Mb users users not happy with the impended cap being introduced, they'll now have a mixed bag of feelings. Its nice to be upgraded for free and to reap the benefits, but that also means a user can potentially hit their cap significantly quicker. Details have it that an option for BT Yahoo customers who have hit their monthly allowance, could be to accept a reduction in speed on their service. Given that all (most) connections would be 2Mb, using a service crippled to 150kbps , less than 10% of their theoretical maximum, could just be a step too far for some.

Edit : We're also aware of a 10% discount to be applied to at least some BTYahoo 2Mb customers, seeing a reduction from £29.99 to £27.00 for 3 months. Details here.

Way back in June 2004, we exclusively received word of impending bandwidth capping to be introduced on the BTYahoo Broadband 512Kbps and 1Mbps products. Some 8 months later, BTYahoo are still yet to enforce such a measure, always citing that details would emerge closer to the Spring 2005 arrival of the capping.

We since understand that BT will be introducing the capping in two stages, one for existing BTYahoo customers who have existing accounts or have ordered broadband on or before 16 February 2005, and for those customers who sign up on or after the 17th February 2005. Details of the latter is expected to be announced by BTYahoo very soon, and should give a good indication of the finer details existing BTYahoo customers can expect.

Further, we understand that BTYahoo will put into place facilities for customers to check their current usage of their service by Easter 2005 (around the last week in March), with capping introduced in May or June 2005, and there is no plan to alter the currently advised capped rates of 15GB for the 512Kbps product, or 30GB for the 1Mbps product.

Customers who find they exceed their monthly allowance will have two options, one of which has the subscriber paying for additional usage (price yet to be known), with any excess of these "Top ups" being carried over to future months for use if needed. The second option sees the user accepting a throttled service of 150Kbps for the remainder of the month.

A few of our readers noticed we missed out on a recent piece of news offering BT Anytime (dial up) customers the chance to upgrade their Internet service to a broadband one, for (initially) the same monthly cost as what their Anytime dial up service costs. Not one to disappoint, we thought we've do a quick write up about the situation.

Called BT Yahoo Anytime Plus, invitations have been shipped out to existing Anytime subscribers meeting high usage criteria (note : this offer is by invitation only - so its fruitless phoning up BTYahoo asking for this). Offering subscribers the opportunity to upgrade their dial up connection to BT Yahoo Broadband 512kbps, the service will cost just £15.99 per month (if you pay by Direct Debit, otherwise £16.99) until 1st May 2005. From May 2005 onwards, users are given the choice to continue with the 512kbps service at the normal £26.99 per month (via Direct Debit, else £27.99). Users who choose do not want the full 512kbps service can optionally elect to 'downgrade' their broadband to a special 150kbps service, and continue paying the £15.99/£16.99 per month. The 150kbps service is capped at 1GB data allowance per month.

Invitations are being sent out now and valid only until the 31st December 2004.

BTYahoo Broadband have discontinued payment by Direct Debit or Credit card for all new customers signing up to the ISPs broadband products. Effective since the 11th of October, the move see a payment alignment equal to that of BT Group's other ISP, BT Broadband.

Previously, BT Yahoo offered a £1 discount for those customers who elected to pay for their broadband service via Direct Debit, or Continuous Authorisation Transaction (CAT) on their Credit Card. A similar discount of £1 will still be available to new customers, but getting it, could be a little more convoluted for some potential subscribers, as the entitlement for the discount is now placed on the onus of the BT Phone bill being payed by Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan, as opposed to the subscription for the broadband service itself.

All existing subscribers to any BTYahoo Broadband package will continue to pay for their broadband via their current method (be it Credit Card or Direct Debit) should they wish. There are no plans for any forced migration of payment for these customers, over to the new telephone bill system.

Customers leaving in droves in their plight to find an alternative (and more importantly, cheaper) broadband ISP? Whats an ISP to do ?

Well, as part of a 3 month trial, BTYahoo Broadband seem be offering those subscribers who decide to leave an upgrade to the ISPs 1Mbit product - for the same monthly price as they pay for a 512k connection.

Entitled "Anniversary Speed Regrade", existing subscribers who have been with BTYahoo for 10 months or more who (and this is important for all you lot who fancy just "trying it on") "genuinely" want to cease their BTYahoo Broadband service, could be offered an upgrade to 1Mbit - all for no more pennies that what is paid for a 512k service. Upon taking the regrade, there is a caveat (isn't there always ?) - there is a new 12 month contract in force.

BTYahoo are expecting over 2,000 customers during the 3 month trial period to declare their allegiance to the massive ISP - and take up the offer.

Subscribers of some non US ISPs including those in the UK, are being barred from visiting the "Federal Voting Assistance Program" web site to prevent hacking in the forthcoming US Presidential Elections.

The move, expected to affect Americans residing in non-US countries, sees access revoked from over 25 international countries including Yahoo Broadband in Japan, Wanadoo in France, Telefónica in Spain and Blighties very own BT Yahoo Broadband. A spokeswoman for the US Pentagon confirmed that a number of international ISPs have been blacklisted in an attempt to thwart hacking attempts.

No word yet from BTYahoo on this, but Wanadoo have confirmed the blacklisting. Indeed a spokesman for Wanadoo advised "We've been blacklisted for two years on government and military sites".

The news that the Wanadoo UKs french relative is being blocked for the same reason will come to no surprise for 1,000's of BTYahoo subscribers who were earlier this year subjected to a huge amount of Adult spam.

Americans affected by this action could try an alternative ISP, or seek to obtain the voter registration forms from alternative sources. Additionally, an independent, non Government controlled web site exists in a similar ilk to that of the "Federal Voting Assistance Program" - here.

For the past few weeks BTYahoo have announced details of a critical patch required for users of the ISPs BTYahoo software (browser, messenger, parental controls), which faces problems once Microsoft Windows XP users have installed Service Pack 2, which should be released to the wider audience on the 25th August.

BTYahoo tech support announced in this post (visible on our forum) detailing amongst others, problems post SP2 with Parental Controls preventing all Internet connectivity being blocked, ActiveX being blocked & BTYahoo Messenger causing a security alert.

BTYahoo have, in the last week or so, released software 'fixes' to resolve all the known issues post SP2 - which users of the affected software should download and install before installing Service Pack 2. If you already use the BTYahoo browser, then chances are you should already have received notification and installed the fix. However, if you have not, we advise you do so as soon as possible.

You can find out more on BTYahoo's own dedicated page about the fix here.

BTYahoo have this month launched the trial of a dedicated diagnostic network aimed at troubleshooting "a number" of ADSL connections which appear to have a poor reliability of service.

Running until the end of October, the"Captive Network Trial"sees a dedicted network established which can accomodate upto 10 BTYahoo Broadband customers who are seeing random disconnections of their service. Once on the Captive Network, in depth diagnostic information will be yeilded from the ADSL connection, with a view to finally resolving what must be a very annoying problem for the end user.

BT are currently thinking that theres some degree of "incompatability" between BT's network and the ADSL equipment end users are connecting.

Oh, and in case it needs to be said, there's no ability to 'request' BT put you on the CNT. End users with connection reliability problems that fail to be resolved by traditional technical support methods, may be invited to be moved over to the diagnostic network.

By now, hopefully everyone should be aware of the recent price reductions effective from 1st July, and the usage cap due to be introduced sometime next year. Such was the response, BTYahoo are finding themselves a bit swamped with requests for upgrades.

The price reduction saw BTYahoo knock up to £3 off their existing 512K broadband service bringing the service down to a potential £26.99. However, users were soon quick to realise for the same monthly fee as they were paying before the price cuts - they could upgrade to a 1Mb giving them up to twice the available download rate. All for no more month than they have been paying in previous months.

We've spoken to BT about this, and they've admitted they underestimated the number of people requesting upgrades, but will continue to try and keep lead times to a minimum. Current lead times for the upgrade seems to be averaging around 10 working days according to feedback that UK-Bug has received.

As we reported yesterday, BT have now confirmed the price reductions for BTYahoo Broadband custmers.

Press Release in the usual place.

It's now all but confirmed that BT will tomorrow announce price reductions for their IPStream based Home500, and Home 1000 products, effective 1st July 2004. It's been a long time coming.

As suspected, BTYahoo's "500" service will be reduced by £3, to £26.99 (inc VAT) for those subscribers paying by monthly Direct Debit. Subscribers paying for this service via Credit Card will still be getting a discount, although of a slightly lesser amount of £2, down to £27.99 (inc VAT) per month.

BTYahoo Broadband 1Mbit customers will see the biggest discount of over 25% knocked off their monthly bill, with Direct Debit subscribers finding their monthly bill reduced by £11 to £29.99, and Credit Card subscribers reduced by £10, to £30.99 (again, both prices inc VAT, and are monthly). This sees quite a major price alteration for the ISPs 1Mbit service which previously cost over £40, but now will cost less than £30.

In all cases, Credit Card subscribers will pay a slightly higher charge due to the increased cost in collecting payments - a common practice by companies these days.

Despite the discount, BTYahoo continues to be one of the more expensive broadband ISPs on the market today. Many rival ISPs are offering unlimited broadband packages for under £25 per month. However, BTYahoo customers can now try and work out what to spend their extra disposable income on.

Talking of bandwidth allowances, BTYahoo should also announce tomorrow confirmation of the capping of their 500 and 1000 products next year which we revealed yesterday. 15Gb allowance per month for BTYahoo Broadband 500 customers, and 30Gb allowance per month for BTYahoo Broadband 1000 customers.

Following our previous article about BTYahoo capping limits on the horizon, it appears that BTYahoo have finally removed details from the page in question.

However, we're reliably informed, that we can expect an official announcement of the ISPs capping plans come tomorrow, Wednesday 30th June.

Watch this space.

It seems that BTYahoo have finally deemed that their unlimited BTYahoo Broadband service must become capped. Although there is good news as well, as it appears theres to be a "substantial" reduction in service rental on the cards as well.

It's important to note at this point, that the details on the following web site have not officially been announced. Do NOT contact BTYahoo about this. The capping will not become effective until early 2005.

Details on a special preview BT web site list that the cap will be 15Gb per month. However, reading between the lines it appears that BTYahoo will introduce a two tiered service, one charging users "substantially less" than what we guess must be the current £29.99, with a 15Gb monthly allocation. "Substantial" might be relative however - advertising on the 'preview' website lists "Broadband from £26.99". Is £3 substantial ?

Second option, we guess sees the retention of the £29.99 rental charge, but upping the usage allowance to 30Gb a month.

In both cases, an additional 1Gb of transfer allowance would be purchasable at £2, although its stressed that there might be alternative options to help reduce this additional transfer allowance cost.

You can read the details on a special "preview" web site here but you'd best be quick, as BT might decide to take this URL down quicker than you can download it - if your on broadband anyway ;o)

Back in February 2003, the then BTOpenworld launched a little application called NetHelp. Some 16 months later it seems that the re branded BTYahoo, and have decided to upgrade and re publicise their tool - aimed to help users - help themselves.

Consisting of a free 9Mb download, the tool aims to provide automatic fixing for the majority of the common problems that BTYahoo tech support agents deal with (incorrect email server settings etc), whilst also providing a facility to communicate with BTYahoo tech support electronically, instead of hanging on the phone.

In summary BTYahoo users can expect (in BTYahoo's words) ...

• Diagnose and fix email and connectivity related issues
• Solve problems quickly and easily
• Use it if you are connected to the internet or not
• Send messages online to our Helpdesk agents who are on hand 24/7

Download details can be found here, and you can find an FAQ for the tool here.

BTYahoo subscribers will today find a pleasant email in their inboxes advising of the latest enhancement to their service - a 2Gb primary email account. A positive step in an impending "inbox size war" against forthcoming rival email provider GMail from Google.

Officially launched just a few hours ago, BTYahoo subscribers now have a 2Gb primary email account, up from 50Mb, with secondary accounts being boosted from 10Mb to 100Mb. GMail from Google, currently in Beta, will offer users a 1Gb email account free of charge. The GMail service will feature targeted advertising based on the content of emails in the account.

The launch also sees the removal of all graphical advertisements from the service, as well as a slight graphical re-working of the site in general, which does seem to offer improved navigation around the various options.

The launch was however proceeded by a little hiccup which saw thousands of BTYahoo subscribers sent an email warning advising that their email accounts were over their assigned "-2348Mb" allowance (thats not a typo by the way), despite some users having just 1 or 2Mb on account. This has been now been rectified, apologised for (no doubt with BTYahoo looking a little red raced) and users should now be receiving their correct "Service Upgrade" email.

A handy FAQ has been setup by BTYahoo, which you can read here.

Residential trialists of the Long Reach trial in Milton Keynes who sign up to BTYahoo Broadband, will not be paying a penny for their ADSL connection during the 16 week phase - BT have confirmed today, realising a saving of £29.99 a month, plus free hardware !

Expected to last until the 30th September, the Long Reach trial aims to see if BTs current limitation on distance is conservative (which its expected to be) or not. Clearly, by extending the distance from the ADSL enabled exchanges BT will be able to bring broadband to 1,000's more homes across the UK, previously classed as too far to receive an ADSL service.

Many if not all of the alternative ISPs such as Plusnet and Nildram, participating in the trial are continuing to charge for the ADSL connection during the trial, although some are reducing their monthly subscription or offering some free or cheaper hardware.

The Long Reach trial has only been going on for a couple of days, but we'll have an update on the trial soon ... so watch this space.

For the past few weeks, BTYahoo subscribers have been subject to both a severe delay in receiving e-mail, and an even worse amount of one particular spam e-mail. Today good progress seems to have been made in resolving the issue.

Offering access to Adult pornographic web sites, the spam has flooded many a subscribers inbox, despite BTYahoo!'s Spamguard feature which attempts to reduce the amount of spam people receive. We understand that some subscribers have been subject to receiving over 1,000 mails a day, all leading to the same web site - hosted in France ultimately by Wanadoo. Complaints to the French division of Wanadoo were left unanswered and ignored.

Visiting the site leads to the download of a piece of software commonly known as a Dialler, which replaces the existing Internet connection, dialling a premium rate one instead. For users of a broadband service, the lack of a traditional modem means this method of "tricking" the punter was not a problem. The dialler was not the issue. The pure amount of spam was.

Users from BTYahoo have taken up the challenge of stopping the spam - whilst BT were powerless to do anything, as the emails had a different 'sender' e-mail address each time. Today positive responses were recieved from a regulatory body, and from senior management at Wanadoo themselves.

ICTIS - the regulatory body for "Telephone Information Services" (ie premium rate services) have today confirmed an investigation into the activities of the owning company of the premium rate number - One World Interactive, a seemingly major operator in the premium rate adult telephone service industry.

Additionally, UK-Bug can confirm that following a conversation today with the Managing Director of Operations, Mr Tim Phillips, Wanadoo UK have commited to taking this matter up with their French counter-parts.

Turning full circle, was the Wanadoo spammer the sole cause of the recent slowdown in e-mail ? It certainly seems a likely cause we think. BT have yet to comment.

A number of BTYahoo subscribers have contacted uk-bug.net over the past couple of days due to delayed, and often undelivered email.

After some testing it transpires that sending an email to a BTYahoo subscriber appears to result in the following (but abrupt) error message being returned to the sender as short as just 24 hours later.

Its clear that not all BTYahoo subscribers are seeing this problem, but to degree a huge number are experiencing at least a delay of some degree on email being correctly delivered to the BTYahoo recipient. If your experiencing lost email, in the first instance, please check with the latest Service Status announcement (links below) - and or contact BTYahoo Technical Support

You can keep an eye on the latest BTYahoo Announcement here, or via the ISPs dedicated Service Status webpage here.

BT Broadband and BT Yahoo are offering free return flights to those who sign up to one of their ADSL services. Users have until June 20th to sign up, but to stop those who may have long RFS dates applying, connection must take place before the 18th July.

After applying and receiving a voucher, this can then be exchanged for a flight destination to either Europe (Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Nice, Barcelona or Prague) or the USA (New York, Atlanta, Boston, Washington DC or Philadelphia), with departure from one of four UK airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester or Stansted).

Interestingly this offer isn't tied to any specific airline, so the choice is yours. Another added bonus (unless you have no mates!) is that you can take an additional person with you for £88 to Europe, or £219 to the USA.

Full details from BT.

On 9th March 2004 BTY announced SpamGuard. It was described as individually and collectively trainable, using Bayesian learning. Users could develop an individual training history and contribute to the collective efficiency of SpamGuard.

Within a few days, BTY admitted that they had advertised SpamGuard Plus but actually provided the more basic version - SpamGuard. Only SpamGuard Plus was individually trainable and offered users the option of disposable email addresses (AddressGuard). Customers were eventually migrated to the new service.

Many BTYahoo! notification mails unfortunately arrived in the new bulk folders so that customers checking mail by pop3 were unaware of any change to their accounts. The false positive rate with SpamGuard Plus is considerably higher than the earlier Brightmail system. Customers were assured that the trainability of SpamGuard Plus would obviate this drawback.

The help files showed screen shots of a slightly different web interface to the one provided. The bulk folder view lacked any Not Spam reporting button and users had to open individual mails to report false positives - which has no doubt reduced the amount of users reporting false positives.

Customisable filters did move "false positive" email to the right folder, but did not remove the bulk folder identifying string, so that client side filters using that string (X-YahooFilteredBulk) would still classify it as spam.

Training SpamGuard Plus without using Address Blocking or Filters proved impossible for some users - no matter how often they reported either false negatives or false positives. The author has found that all his legitimate subscription newsletters are still classified as spam even after being reported nineteen or twenty times.

On 6th May, the BTYahoo! 2nd level support team in Canada reported to the author, after a four week investigation, that SpamGuard Plus was NOT individually trainable unless address blocking and filters were used. This appears to be incompatible with the information, issued to the press on 9th March April and in the BTY help pages

We await further developments - but the launch of SpamGuard Plus for BTYahoo customers has not been a happy experience. Clear and accurate information to both customers and support staff seems to remain a very low priority at BTYahoo!

It has been reported to UK-Bug that there is a possible security flaw in the way BTYahoo! webmail handles invalid logons. The problem appears to be with a browser called Oregano which runs on the RISC platform, but the problem isn't reproducable using IE, Opera or Firefox.

When you type in your e-mail address and password when logging in to BTYahoo! webmail, you should get the correct default page with your OWN e-mail address showing at the top, and the navigation bar on the left with your e-mails shown in the middle.

But with Oregano you are offered an alternative redirection page, this redirection page displays fellow BTYahoo users e-mail addresses in full. If you then press "click here to go back" or "refresh", the page returns and shows other users e-mail address (albeit singular) everytime instead of your own e-mail.

Although this isn't a security risk, we at UK-Bug would be interested if anyone can replicate this problem with any other browser.

Just a short note to advise BTYahoo subscribers that there is currently a problem with BTYahoo's Anti-Spam mechanism. BTYahoo are aware, and currently investigating. We've had a few requests if we know aobut this problem - so thought it best to let readers via a News Flash.

Introduced back in early March, the SpamGuard Plus service works to reduce the number of spams that subcribers get. However, overnight and continuing this morning, subscribers are reporting a deluge of unwanted emails. Some subscribers are reporting in excess of over 1,000 spams reaching their inbox through last night and this morning alone. Thats a serious amount of Viagra!

So - if you've noticed an increase in the number of "should be caught" emails arriving in your inbox today - Yes, BTYahoo do have a problem, Yes, they know about it, and Yes, they're working on it.

Reassuring, isnt it?

UPDATE : 22:36
BTYahoo have finally publically acknowledged the problem. You can read their acceptance here in their Announce group. You can also read BTYahoo subscribers pain with this issue here.

UPDATE : 09:32, 8th April.
BTYahoo's ServerStatus portal was updated at 7am this morning, reporting the spam filtering problem is resolved, which is good news indeed.

Today we have been advised by BT of the latest migration plans for all current BTOpenworld (business) and BTYahoo (residental) regarding moving users from the existing BT Wholesale Central network over to the BT Central Plus network, currently used by users of BT's "no frills" offering BT Broadband.

From the 29th March 2004, customers will be migrated over from the old network in batches according to the users Home Gateway number.

Users of BT Broadband will already be aware that when on the BT Central Plus network, there is no password required to connect to the service, and this will now apply to all BT Openworld and BT Yahoo customers as well. That said, authentication will still be required for accessing services such as webmail. By the use of the BT Central Plus's "Line Identifier", another change is that the username is not totally used either, as only the domain part is required (@hgxx.btinternet.com).

Downtime is inevitable, but this will be reduced to an absolute minimum. Users who are connected to the service at the time of migration will notice a few days later that their connection has been broken. Re-attempting to connect will restore the service.

BT have also provided the following FAQ, relevant post migration.

I have noticed that there is no password required now, I am worried that this will make my access unsafe? BT Yahoo! Broadband is migrating to a new underlying network that will not require the use of a password in order for you to log on onto the network part of the service. This does not mean that the broadband service is not secure. It’s in fact as secure as it was before, with the added benefit that now, using the ‘line identifier’, the broadband service will only be accessible via the telephone line where it was provided. It should be noted that this change only affect the ‘network’ part of the service, customer will still need to enter username and password to access the portal and webmail and other services (via the welcome screen or via any other browsers like internet explorer).

When I check my line on ADSL guide, the speed check shows me as having BT Broadband - why is this? BT Broadband currently utilises the same network that BT Yahoo! Broadband will be migrating to. This means that when speed tests are done, ADSL guide will no longer be able to differentiate that type of product you have (connection only with BT Broadband or full ISP services with BT Yahoo! Broadband). You should not see any changes to your service.

I have noticed that you are migrating networks. Does this mean I now have the a BT Broadband product, and I now only pay BT Broadband price? No. BT Yahoo! Broadband is migrating to a new underlying network. BT Broadband currently utilises the same network that BT Yahoo! Broadband will be migrating to. This only means both set of products are now using the same underlying infrastructure. The price difference is based on the array of services you receive as part of the broadband package you have purchased. With BT Broadband you will have a ‘no-frills’ service (connectivity only) while with BT Yahoo! Broadband you will have the added benefits of a full ISP service, including up to 11 email addresses, BT Yahoo! Browser, Personalised Homepage Email virus protection, Parental controls, pop-up blocker just to name a few. No changes in your service or charges will be made.

A warning has been issued today to users of Yahoo's email web interface who use Microsofts Internet Explorer as their browser choice.

GreyMagic, a security company from Israel has warned of a serious exploit to users of Internet Explorer when reading their email via Yahoo's facilties comes about due to Yahoo implementing filters to ironically protect users in the first place.

The flaw, realised through something called Cross-Site scripting which has been subject to many explot alerts in the past, could potentially open up the users Yahoo email service to abuse, with consequences including theft of login id and password, which could lead to the distribution of more viri.

The flaw was not initially limited to just Yahoo however. Microsoft Hotmail was also liable to the same explot. In this case Microsoft Hotmail engineers worked with GregMagic to resolve the security blunder.

We tagged this story against BTYahoo, as the ISP's joint venture with Yahoo provides subscribers the ability to read their email via the affected web site - which could potentially infect thousands.

All users of Yahoo's email web interface are advised a) to upgrade their virus definitions, and / or b) seek to use an alternative browser until the exploit is fixed.

As daft as it sounds, users of BTYahoo's new AddressGuard (which we detailed earlier this month) have found a flaw worthy of the highest accolade that is a 'doh!' award. AddressGuard addresses, ultimately provided by content partner Yahoo, are actually, wait for this, barred by some of Yahoo's own services !

First coming to light in the BTYahoo newsgroups, by one subscriber of the service, AddressGuard addresses are seen as a solution towards the ever increasing spam that is arriving in our inbox daily. Using up to 500 "throw away" e-mail addresses, users can easily monitor if an e-mail address provided in good faith has been sold to 3rd parties, deleting the e-mail address as appropriate - all the time, users keep their primary e-mail account allocated by their ISP private and hopefully clean of spam.

As users of BTYahoo though, subscribers to the service receive an AddressGuard e-mail address with the domain of \@yahoo.co.uk'. Attempts to use this new account to register this with Yahoo's YahooGroups, result in the alarming message

The concept of having disposable e-mail addresses easily erased and monitored, could be a great tool in the battle against the spam - but sadly it appears that one of the prime examples of the features use (providing e-mail addresses to a distribution list) shows the services limitation. With many sites barring 'free' and 'easily obtainable' accounts from being used during registration, and indeed Yahoo themselves sticking by this policy - we wonder in reality how many sites actually ban \@yahoo.co.uk' e-mail addresses. If you know of one, let us know, by adding a comment to this article, using the link below.

BTYahoo have today launced SpamGuard Plus - a free new bolt on option for all BTYahoo customers that aims to reduce the amount of spam its customers are recieving, and will also provide 500 "throw away" email addresses for each it's customers.

Webuser are reporting that the new SpamGuard Plus product aims to reduce the amount of spam hitting customers inboxes by examining patterns of spam - bizzarely similar to the current anti-spam implementation employed with the ISPs email.

The disposable email addresses intend to provide the ability for users to provide email contact information to companies that require such for sign up of services. Often a cause of tension for users of these services, is the fear that their contact details will be forwarded to 3rd party, and eventually lead to unwanted emails. The 500 disposable and we hope recycleable addresses will enable users to delete email addresses as appropriate. Clearly with the amount of subscribers BTYahoo has, these additional addresses will most likely be 'aliases' as previously seen by BT's content partner, Yahoo.

Quite how all this differs in terms of operability, co-existability, and from a users perspective, effectiveness from existing anti-spam methods employed by the ISP remains to be seen. For quite some time customers of BTYahoo have complained in the ISPs newsgroups. We await to be amazed.

Targeted subscribers of ISP BT Yahoo are starting to receive a stark warning letter from the ISP, following what appears to be misuse of the service, in sharing unreleased source code to Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT.

Following news last month that illegal sections of code from the Microsoft platforms had been leaked on the internet, distribution of the code has flooded certain Peer to Peer networks. Head of Internet Security at BT Retail, Mr Nick Truman refused to comment actually who has advised BT Yahoo of the sharing of the said source code, but the number of subscribers of the ISP is said to be "substantial", according to The Register.

A copy of the letter distributed by BT Yahoo can be read below.

BT Retail's boss, Pierre Danon hinted yesterday that BTYahoo & BT Broadband customers could be seeing a price reduction in their monthly rental of the telco's consumer services.

Speaking of the groups results, its thought that with such huge progress being made in the BTWholesales continuing effort of the creation 100% broadband availability for the UK, nearly 2 million ADSL installations, and BT Retail having almost 50% of these, price cuts could be one option that the groups ISPs could use to further drive demand.

BTYahoo cease billing advance notification.

BTYahoo this month will cease to notify customers of their intended subscription charge for the ISPs Internet services. Each month BTYahoo customers receive (or should receive) notification of intended attempt to take payment for either their broadband or narrowband services, however, according to BTYahoo customers do not feel any need for this email, and only assists in filling up subscribers email inboxes. As a result, BTYahoo has taken the decision to stop emailing these notifications.

Customers of the ISP will in future only receive notification if the value of the instruction to their bank changes up or down, in accordance with Direct Debit and Credit Card policies.

Back in mid January, we exclusively revealed details of BTYahoo's intended "advisory" 1GB daily cap on what we thought would be limited to the ISPs 1Mbps service. The advisory cap however, is to be applied to all of the BTYahoo consumer offerings including 512Kbps services. The cap will not apply to any of the business based products.

At the moment, BTYahoo will not be taking action to enforce the cap on its subscribers, although the ISP notes that it has not ruled this out for the future.

The following advisory statement appears in the BTYahoo FAQ

BTYahoo technical support engineers have obviously been briefed on this situation, and will cite that a 1Gb cap is actually more than the theoretical minimum that any of the ISPs products are capable of anyway. Citing BTYahoo's own maths ...