The problem (actually 2 problems) are solved. The one I was actually posting about turned out to be that I had put a line which says
protocol = smtps in the wrong place in a file named /etc/exim4/conf.d/transport/30_exim4-config_remote_smtp_smarthost This caused dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config to throw an error about not being able to generate the master configuration file named /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated. It turns out that it's the very last line in the file just as it was before and I had seen where I thought it should go which was wrong. After that, the login worked. Port 465 is supposed to start encrypted and 587 starts in the clear. What I found out, though, was that there was another issue, that of the user id that suddenlink needs to see versus the user ID based totally on the user and machine name. There is a specific debian fix for this problem which makes life light years easier and it is /etc/email-addresses and it installs along with your debian version of exim4 and starts life empty of anything but comments and explanation. One simply puts in a line containing their local user ID followed by a : and then the user ID that the smarthost knows you as. exim4 rewrites all the local lines such as Sender: to be the remote user ID and then you can start your happy dance because it just works. You can have multiple smarthosts and multiple lines in /etc/email-addresses so if there are multiple users on the debian system or you have multiple smarthosts to deliver to, the user ID that gets sent over the network is right each time. This is getting easier with each upgrade but you need to stick to very recent postings to get the best information. Anyway, it now works again and I am simply sending it through exim4 in the normal manner. Thank you to everybody who helped. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ