Sky broadband customer have been caught on the hop this week as the firm switched off its in-house SMTP servers and completed outsourcing its email provision to Google.

Despite warnings many were unprepared for the deadline, which means they need to update their desktop email programme settings to send and receive new messages. Over the weekend Sky finally mothballed its own system.

The deal was originally announced back at the end of 2006 and migration to the new platform has been going on for several months, not without hitches. Sky's hope that customers wouldn't need to change settings manually proved over-optimistic.

Anyone having trouble could do a lot worse than head down to Skyuser. There's an official guide here (pdf). ®

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