Your Life
Change is coming – it’s in the mail
Like a street address, we tend to have an email address and stick with it, but that choice is likely to be taken from us. EDIN READ recommends getting ready for change now to avoid the hassle that will be on the way.
Email is an essential part of communication as the world becomes progressively more digital. As well as personal communication, we use them for medical appointments, banking and a lot of other correspondence.
It has become clear that some email providers have dropped the ball in regard to the service offered to customers.
In the past, a large part of the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP, such as Telstra, Optus, TPG) role involved providing your personal email address. This was a part of their strategy, to get you connected and to keep you connected for as long as possible.
In doing so, we all signed up for something we thought would be sustained for a while, and ended up committing to these email addresses, using them for our primary e-communication.
These were great while they lasted (albeit, sometimes the support aspect from these companies has been less than anticipated), and we used them for everything.
These days, ISPs are realising that hosting these email addresses is no longer a profitable part of business, and is not in their best interest, so they are slowly phasing them out.
Last month, TPG stopped supporting their email accounts and hundreds of thousands of Australians were left with the option to either close their email address, or pay an ongoing fee to have access to past emails.
Optus and Telstra have started phasing out their email addresses too. No longer can you create a new bigpond or optusnet email address.
I speculate that this means that the service for these email addresses also will come to a halt before too long.
What does this mean for current Optus or Telstra customers who rely on their ISP email addresses? Unfortunately, the news is likely not good.
Much like TPG, these customers probably will be forced to make a decision – stop using the email or possibly pay a fee to have the email history.
Greyology’s recommendation is to move away from these email addresses.
Gmail is a great alternative. It’s free, gives you access to 15GB of email storage (can be upgraded) and is likely to be around for a good amount of time as it is one of Google’s main services.
Telstra carries a storage of 10GB, and Optus carries a tiny 500MB – 1/30th of Gmail. This means that if you’ve been with Optus, it’s more than likely you’ve run into some storage issues such as not receiving emails or being unable to send any as your mailbox is full.
Changing email addresses can be a hassle, but you’ll be grateful in the long term.
It’s easier to make the decision to change now and transition over the next few months, than have to do it quickly if/when the ISPs announce they are ending support for these emails.
Changing email addresses is exactly like moving house – it takes some time and isn’t always easy, but you’ll appreciate it once it’s over.
Send an email to your friends from your old account to advise them of your new address and tell companies that you want to hear from of the change.
On the bright side, it gives you a chance to leave behind the junk emails, and be very selective about who you give your email address to in the future.
Let me know if you need assistance.
Edin Read is founder and chief technician at Greyology Tech Support for Seniors. Visit greyology.com.au
