BT Email Outage Leaves Thousands Without Access

Thousands of BT customers experienced a significant outage, leaving them unable to access their email accounts. The disruption began earlier this morning, triggering a wave of complaints on social media and outage tracking websites.

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Downdetector, a website that monitors outages, registered over 4,600 complaints, with more than 90% of reported issues related to email access. Some customers also reported problems with broadband connectivity.

The outage appears to have started early in the morning, with frustrated users taking to social media to voice their concerns. One user on X (formerly Twitter) questioned the cause of the email service disruption. Others tagged BT, requesting updates on the situation and clarification on whether the issue stemmed from a widespread problem or individual account issues.

Customer Frustration

Many customers expressed frustration over the lack of communication from BT regarding the outage. Some reported that they were unable to get a response via BT’s online chat support. They wanted to know why there was no announcement or pinned message addressing the problem and estimated fix time on BT’s website or social media channels.

One user described their experience of accessing emails briefly before encountering error messages and DNS server issues, despite troubleshooting steps like clearing cookies and flushing DNS. Another user simply stated that BT internet mail server is down.

BT’s Response

A BT spokesperson acknowledged the issue, stating: “We’re aware that some BT email customers are unable to access their email on webmail and via the app. We’re investigating the cause of this and we’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

BT suggested that customers could try switching off Wi-Fi and using mobile data to access their email as an alternative. The company also stated that no other BT service was affected.

Outage Details

Downdetector indicated that the primary problem reported was email access, with over 92% of users experiencing difficulties. Broadband issues accounted for 7% of reports, while problems with BT’s website were minimal, at just 1%.

Background Information on BT

BT Group plc is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broadband, and mobile services in the UK. It also owns other broadband providers like EE and Plusnet. Recently, BT announced it would hike mobile and broadband tariffs up to £3 a month from March for contracts taken out from April 10, 2024. Plusnet announced it will increase Broadband prices by £3 a month from the end of March for contracts taken out after July 11, 2024.