iinet closing email services.

[GTP]

Has anyone else had an email from iinet telling clients that:

"iiNet has made the decision to stop providing email services in 2023. This change will help us focus on creating better experiences for our core products: internet and mobile.

You can opt-in to transfer your iiNet email address to another Australian email provider, The Messaging Company. The Messaging Company will become your email provider and most importantly, you will not lose any emails, contacts or calendar events as part of the transfer.

To keep using your email address, r**.*********s@adam.com.au, you’ll need to opt-in to transferring to The Messaging Company by 26/09/2023, otherwise your email address may be suspended."

Is this a scam or for real? I have many iinet clients but no others have received this notice (yet).

I guess I could ask the client to call iinet and enquire but thought I'd ask here first.

Thanks

 

[britechguy]

Since I'm not in Australia, I can't answer this definitively. But, that being said, this sounds like what Verizon did here in the USA when it decided to bail on email. Their addresses (in full, you could keep the @verizon.net address) were transferred wholesale to AOL (yes, that AOL) when they closed up shop if, and only if, the user requested it. Otherwise, the addresses were deleted.

 

[frase]

@GTP It is real, a few of the ISP's in Aus are doing this to boost their returns in other areas, as mail servers cost them money to maintain. I actually had a client that I had to run through them with this the other day, As they didnt really understand what they needed to do.

Essentially customers who wish to keep their email such as barrybollocks@iinet.com.au, they have two choices.

Lose their email altogether
Migrate email address to The Messaging Company

The first 24Months are free, after that I am unsure.

 

[fincoder]

TPG is ending email services and if effects all ISP brands they own (e.g. iinet, westnet, internode). I have a westnet email address that I don't use, but I've registered for migration to the other company (TMC) just to see what the process is so I can advise customers. They're saying email client account settings or webmail URL won't change, but I'm sceptical.

The way I understand it, TPG is paying TMC for 12 months (not 24) then TMC will monetise those accounts somehow (ads or subscription).

Lots of discussion about this in Whirlpool's TPG Group forum:

https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/90

 

[GTP]

TPG is ending email services and if effects all ISP brands they own (e.g. iinet, westnet, internode). I have a westnet email address that I don't use, but I've registered for migration to the other company (TMC) just to see what the process is so I can advise customers. They're saying email client account settings or webmail URL won't change, but I'm sceptical.

The way I understand it, TPG is paying TMC for 12 months (not 24) then TMC will monetise those accounts somehow (ads or subscription).

Lots of discussion about this in Whirlpool's TPG Group forum:

https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/90

Thanks. I've never heard of The Messaging Company but apparently they've been around for 20 odd years.
I thought the same thing in regard to once onboard it would perhaps be monetised.
Thanks for the Whirlpool link, I'll direct my clients to it.

 

[Markverhyden]

Has anyone else had an email from iinet telling clients that:

"iiNet has made the decision to stop providing email services in 2023. This change will help us focus on creating better experiences for our core products: internet and mobile.

You can opt-in to transfer your iiNet email address to another Australian email provider, The Messaging Company. The Messaging Company will become your email provider and most importantly, you will not lose any emails, contacts or calendar events as part of the transfer.

To keep using your email address, r**.*********s@adam.com.au, you’ll need to opt-in to transferring to The Messaging Company by 26/09/2023, otherwise your email address may be suspended."

Is this a scam or for real? I have many iinet clients but no others have received this notice (yet).

I guess I could ask the client to call iinet and enquire but thought I'd ask here first.

Thanks

This has actually been going on everywhere for several years. Many ISP's treated the free email as a loss leader for many years. Until they started loosing even more. Verizon is a major one that dropped email. The end users either went to AOL or Yahoo. Here they were able to keep the entire email address, including verizon.net. Not sure how that'll work out down there. But it's actually not that complicated to do.

 

[GTP]

This has actually been going on everywhere for several years. Many ISP's treated the free email as a loss leader for many years. Until they started loosing even more. Verizon is a major one that dropped email. The end users either went to AOL or Yahoo. Here they were able to keep the entire email address, including verizon.net. Not sure how that'll work out down there. But it's actually not that complicated to do.

Not complicated at all it seems as they do all the heavy lifting.
I spoke to my client and I think they are just going to go with gmail or outlook.com
I think @fincoder (and a few in some forums) are correct in that once onboarded they'll start charging.

 

[frecklesnoot]

@GTP I'm with iinet and haven't received that email yet. My internet on HFC cable network is the only service I have with them.
I don't use their email service at all.

 

[britechguy]

I don't use their email service at all.

Then I would not expect that you're going to get an email notification about changing an email address that you don't actually have (unless they automatically set one up "in the background" that you've never logged in to).

It will be interesting to hear if those who take over those email addresses start charging. That never occurred with the Verizon to AOL thing here.

 

[frecklesnoot]

@britechguy yeah I never signed into it. Just didn't see any point in using it as Gmail does what I need.

 

[Markverhyden]

Not complicated at all it seems as they do all the heavy lifting.
I spoke to my client and I think they are just going to go with gmail or outlook.com
I think @fincoder (and a few in some forums) are correct in that once onboarded they'll start charging.

Not sure how many will pay for email. So I prefer to say they'll monetize it. "free" is adware and paid has unlimited storage, backups, etc, etc.

 

[HCHTech]

this sounds like what Verizon did here in the USA when it decided to bail on email. Their addresses (in full, you could keep the @verizon.net address) were transferred wholesale to AOL (yes, that AOL) when they closed up shop if, and only if, the user requested it. Otherwise, the addresses were deleted.

And once with AOL, (no surprise here) quality of service steadily declined. Half the screen is now dedicated to ads and I swear the only folks they let work on the infrastructure are the unpaid interns. Every time we get a residential client in with a verizon address we try to get them to move to gmail - it's a hard sell, of course - there is so much inertia that develops over time with an email address.

 

[britechguy]

And once with AOL, (no surprise here) quality of service steadily declined. Half the screen is now dedicated to ads and I swear the only folks they let work on the infrastructure are the unpaid interns. Every time we get a residential client in with a verizon address we try to get them to move to gmail - it's a hard sell, of course - there is so much inertia that develops over time with an email address.

AOL itself has been in a zombie state for years.

But if someone insists on keeping an AOL operated address, that's where I'll choose using an email client over dealing with their webmail.

 

[GTP]

Clients are happy to go with Outlook.com as opposed to gmail (lesser of two evils I think).
Outlook's spam filters seem to be way ahead of Gmail so that was a considered factor.
I helped them setup 3 new accounts - 1 each for themselves and 1 for general stuff, so if it gets spammed they can create another.

 

[britechguy]

Outlook's spam filters seem to be way ahead of Gmail so that was a considered factor.

I respectfully disagree, but not vehemently.

I have an Outlook.com address (and so do many of my clients) and multiple Gmail addresses (and so do . . .) and I've not seen spam filtering that betters Gmail, though many are running neck and neck.

Spam filtering is a mature technology, on the whole, and all the majors do an incredibly good (and accurate) job with it.

 

[Markverhyden]

I picked up a new client some 15 years ago or who was a long time AOL client. Though the Apple Store. Long time Apple customer as well. Mind you these folks were very well off. Hubby built an edge device company that strictly used ASIC's. The kind of stuff only seen in back bone setups.

By that time AOL was just a shadow of itself. They'd stopped charging people years before. The last Apple OS app they pushed out the door was 5 years before. She was used to getting what she wanted and price didn't matter. By this time the AOL app just full of surprises what with the release of OS X just a few years before. No matter how I or their personal admin put it she wasn't satisfied the AOL wouldn't write a new app for her. After a few months I explained that I was just unable to properly address their requires. After that if someone told me they had AOL I told them I wouldn't touch the app any price. If it was email they'd have to setup a new email and I'd setup rules to forward everything from AOL to where ever. Including new email address autoresponder.

 

[fincoder]

Clients are happy to go with Outlook.com as opposed to gmail (lesser of two evils I think).

If asked, I recommend outlook.com email over gmail/yahoo. Mainly because of the exchange access from email clients that support exchange (e.g. Mail app, Outlook, emClient) so the contacts and calendar sync with the server.

 

[autumn]

Westnet/Iinet/Adam/TGP (all the same company are completely moving away from hosting and emails. I have several clients I set up with Westnet (the original,lol) many moons ago and then the customers moved them out. However Westnet's backend is a mess and there support is even worst (now). I've got access to domains I haven't had access to for 10 or more years (customers who have moved on) but I can't get access to current ones. I send an email from that domain to their support and they reckon they can't help because that email address (the only one on that domain) isn't an authorised contact and they can't give me the details of the authorised contact because I'm not authorised.

 

[britechguy]

they can't help because that email address (the only one on that domain) isn't an authorised contact and they can't give me the details of the authorised contact because I'm not authorised.

It simply amazes me how difficult companies make it to deal with everyday occurrences like personnel changes, often that happened years ago, when it's something "the company that needs to give access" did to make access necessary.

I just went through this hell here in the USA with GoDaddy, and thank God the tech who was "the authorized contact of record" but who had retired was not dead and was willing to tell GoDaddy to transfer ownership of everything. What was even more perverse was that the business owner who is the rightful owner had been paying for the services for years, and we could prove that, but they would not talk to him, only the authorized contact. There was a process for if the authorized contact was deceased, but I shudder to think how many circles of hell that would involve and how long it would take to try to undo the Gordian knot.

 

[autumn]

It simply amazes me how difficult companies make it to deal with everyday occurrences like personnel changes, often that happened years ago, when it's something "the company that needs to give access" did to make access necessary.

I'm sure this happens everywhere, I've dealt with telco's/ISP for customers for (well some 20 years) however I seem to drop off their authorised person and need to get the company director to write a letter on company letterhead to authorise me again. I have had, from a number of Telco's here, been put on as the authorised rep and then to find out they have made me the legal entity for everything, so if the customer decided not to pay then they would chase me. You would think that it would be an everyday thing that techs call but no provisions.