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Author Topic: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP  (Read 1610 times)

sevenlayermuddle

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Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« on: February 22, 2020, 08:47:20 AM »

I caught something about this on Radio 4 in the car the other day.  Seems that Ofcom are threatening to regulate ongoing email provision for old accounts, after people switch ISPs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51571275

I don’t really see how they can regulate free email provision for former customers.   Email provision requires resources including data storage, it wouldn’t seem fair to ‘order’ BT that they had to continue it for free, indefinitely, for former customers.   Email has never been free, it costs the ISP money that comes from customers’ pockets, it’s just it’s not so visible as it’s bundled into account costs.

Even apart from storage costs and bandwidth, the provider may one day simply want to stop using the domain name.  Even Google might one day make a business decision to drop ‘gmail.com’, inconceivable as it seems today.

Some ISPs do allow ongoing use of old email addresses for free, presumably because that’s less bother than cleaning them up, but I’d be surprised if they actually guarantee to do so.

Then again £7.50 per month, if that’s what BT are charging, would indeed appear to be opportunistic daylight robbery.  Just my opinion. >:(
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chenks

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2020, 12:31:10 PM »

if it was forced it would simply mean that ISPs withdraw any email service completely and no longer offer it to anyone.
i'm actually surprised ISPs even bother with still providing email accounts.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2020, 01:20:49 PM by chenks »
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2020, 01:19:28 PM »

You may be right, Chenks.

I’m not convinced that Ofcom have much understanding of the issue.    The radio prog I heard (can’t remember when or what prog) was I think an Ofcom representative who seemed to be asserting that, since we can retain mobile numbers when we switch networks, it should be just as easy to retain an email address when switching ISPs.   ???

Which is a pretty flawed argument.  But flawed arguments have never seemed to stand in the way stopped of Ofcom’s policies. :(
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Bowdon

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2020, 02:24:42 PM »

It seems odd that this issue as suddenly come up considering it was a topic many years ago on the forums.

Don't BT use yahoo?
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2020, 02:43:00 PM »

The reasons it’s come up is that BT, apparently, now charge for the facility, did they always do so?

According to the BBC, it’s a whopping £7.50 a month.  Hard to see how that can be justified.  :o

I suppose Ofcom could perhaps regulate that the ISPs must not charge for ongoing mail for closed accounts, but without compelling them to provide it for free either?    But given the number of people that failed to understand the extremely useful “up to” speed descriptions, I’d bet most of the public, Which?, etc, would be incapable of understanding this too, and would think Ofcom had forced ISPs to simply continue free mail access. :o
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Ronski

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2020, 03:39:50 PM »

I registered my own domain names years ago, for years I simply forwarded emails to my isp's email address but a couple years ago I moved to hosted email, which is much better.

Unfortunately the vast majority of the general public haven't a clue about these options.
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chenks

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2020, 04:02:57 PM »

i would take a guess that the vast majority of the general public are already using non-ISP email accounts - Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo/iCloud etc.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #7 on: February 22, 2020, 05:14:03 PM »

Not sure the vast majority are using non ISP accounts.    Taking a recent village newsletter in my inbox as a random sample, I see it has about 40 addressees.   The majority are gmail or hotmail, with the odd iCloud and yahoo.   But there are eight btinternets, one zen and an aol, so about a quarter of the total.   But maybe I’m nitpicking, it’s still the majority. :)

If Ofcom wanted to make themselves useful maybe they should simply be educating people not to use ISP email address in the first place.  But I wonder if they’re allowed to do that, or is it too much like ‘taking sides’ with one provider over another?
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Ronski

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2020, 06:40:45 PM »

i would take a guess that the vast majority of the general public are already using non-ISP email accounts - Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo/iCloud etc.

I was referring to using your own domain name and hosted email, agreed many use Hotmail, Gmail, etc.
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Ronski

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2020, 06:48:22 PM »

Not sure the vast majority are using non ISP accounts.    Taking a recent village newsletter in my inbox as a random sample, I see it has about 40 addressees.   The majority are gmail or hotmail, with the odd iCloud and yahoo.   But there are eight btinternets, one zen and an aol, so about a quarter of the total.   But maybe I’m nitpicking, it’s still the majority. :)

If Ofcom wanted to make themselves useful maybe they should simply be educating people not to use ISP email address in the first place.  But I wonder if they’re allowed to do that, or is it too much like ‘taking sides’ with one provider over another?

I trust you informed whoever sent the email that they were breaking data protection laws, and they should have used BCC
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #10 on: February 22, 2020, 06:58:00 PM »

I was referring to using your own domain name and hosted email, agreed many use Hotmail, Gmail, etc.


I think we understood  Ronski, and  I strongly agree, private domains are the best solution.

But does that apply to the average member of public?   I think if people are daft enough to think an ISP provided email address will be guaranteed to continue working after they stop paying the ISP, they’d also be daft enough to think their own domain based email would continue working after they stop paying the registrar.  :(

I trust you informed whoever sent the email that they were breaking data protection laws, and they should have used BCC

You know me too well, as I nearly did. :D
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chenks

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #11 on: February 22, 2020, 07:13:06 PM »

may i dare to suggest that it's probably the "older" generation that tends to have an ISP account and still holding on to it?
wheras anyone in the the "mobile phone" generation won't have an ISP account.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2020, 07:25:46 PM »

may i dare to suggest that it's probably the "older" generation that tends to have an ISP account and still holding on to it?
wheras anyone in the the "mobile phone" generation won't have an ISP account.

Maybe so.   Trouble with the village email I used as example is, whilst I recognise most of the names, and I would probably recognise most of the faces and be able to guess their probable ages, I’d struggle to associate the names with the actual faces. :blush:

But I’d also point out that I myself am most definitely part of that “older generation”, and distinctly disdainful of mobile phones, yet I depend solely upon various private domain names for email.   :P
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Weaver

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #13 on: February 22, 2020, 10:01:39 PM »

I’ve always used email service providers that are separate from an ISP and used my own domain name not that of an ISP. And I’ve recommended to my customers that they do the same when I was working as a consultant. Now my favourite one has ceased to exist, I just use AA for email, but their email services are sold separately from internet access anyway and it’s not AA’s domain, so I’m not tied to AA. It’s quite correct, the pain involved with changing email addresses is nightmarish and people should set themselves up with a lifelong email address as there’s no reason not to, but many people don’t know how.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Ofcom: Email provision after switching ISP
« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2020, 11:14:08 PM »

Considering the number of people that post entitled comments about how everything should be free while using Adblockers, I tend to agree.  People really don't understand how any of this stuff works.
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