27 Nov 2017

Vodafone axing email service this week

From Nine To Noon, 9:21 am on 27 November 2017

If you still have a Vodafone email account, you’ll no longer be able to use it after Thursday.

The telecommunications company announced in September that it was shutting down its email service.

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Photo: 123RF

At the time, Vodafone said it had not kept pace with changes in email technology and many of its customers wanted better or had already made the change.

Some of the more well-known addresses that would be shut down are those ending in ihug.co.nz, paradise.net.nz, vodafone.co.nz or clear.net.nz.

Many of the addresses were launched in the 1990s.

More than 110,000 customers have already successfully set up new accounts and made use of the free auto-forwarding service. However, some business owners are unhappy with the forced change.

In September, Auckland consultant engineer Gilles Altner said he had gone through a similar transition which ended up costing him around $20,000 in lost income and costs.

Altner said due to an issue with his email address being used as a domain host, he was unable to receive emails from clients.

However, Vodafone's head of Enterprise Product Aaron Beckman told Nine to Noon domain hosting services would not be affected in the transition.

Mr Beckman said, depending on the system used, only some customers would be able to access old emails or their Vodafone accounts. But all emails would be auto-forwarded. If customers wanted to keep old emails, they needed to import them to their new email service.

120,000 customers had successfully made the transition, while around 80,000 were still active on Vodafone accounts.

Mr Beckman said Vodafone was working with Microsoft and Google to give customers the ability to migrate their email and contact archive to their new account.

Extra help staff would be available during the transition period, Mr Beckman said.

“Technology change is never easy. It requires customers to make some changes,” he said.