topic Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ? in Email

Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Scafellpike — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 16:45:26 GMT

I was informed by a technician a few months ago that email was probably going to be withdrawn either this month or perhaps in July, with this month being the most likely. I phoned customer services this morning re another issue and so enquired if the situation re the withdrawal of the email service was still the case. The advisor said they weren't aware of it but put me on hold whilst they spoke to their manager. I was then informed that the email service was being withdrawn this month but they did not know when ! I've not received any formal communication from Plusnet regarding this issue and wondered if anyone actually knows what is happening.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Townman — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 17:09:54 GMT

No formal announcement means that it is not happening - agents are just speculating on futures, no doubt many such discussions happen on a whole range of topics. Agents have made wild speculation on subjects before which have not come to fruition. As @willcutforth noted recently - he is not aware of any such plans. See https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Heard-that-PLUS-NET-are-closing-the-F9-webmail-system/m-p/1917730#M42829

The one announcement which has been made is that all email services (brands) associated JLP will be closed at the end of this month, with no future. Would not surprise me if agents have heard that news and are suggesting that it applies to all brands.

The SUs have not been advised of any imminent termination of Plusnet branded email services ... something which has been gossiped about for years. The business usually gives us a heads-up on big changes in advance of a public announcement.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Scafellpike — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 17:28:45 GMT

Thanks for the prompt reply and information. I had made a search before posting and had found a few references to similar information being put out at the beginning of the year although I hadn't found that specific post.

Just in case the service was ending, I have been looking around at alternatives but I really don't want the hassle of having to inform all the people/organisations that use my current addresses. As I mentioned to the person I spoke to this morning, it would be pretty disgusting to pull the plug without a reasonable amount of advance warning.

It would appear that the customer service teams including managers need to be made aware that incorrect information is being issued and stepstaken to rectify the problem.

Thanks again.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Townman — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 20:30:27 GMT

Such is a persistent lament.

There will always be issues where one has used an @isp.com form of email address. One is tied to that ISP or the good will in maintaining continues access (free or paid for) after migrating away.

Many years ago, I adopted the use of a personal domain name with my Plusnet email and have never used the @isp.com form of address. That was back in the good old days of Plusnet offering free for life domain name hosting. Should the service move or cease at some future time, at least I will have less pain than many.

Unfortunately I think many people have completely lost track of all the places they have used their email addresses ... which makes a wholesale change an utter nightmare!

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

pdillon — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:21:08 GMT

Could this be why the webmail interface is so ancient looking, I am scunnered with trying to look for an email which comes to my plusnet email address from my phone. I have never managed to get it to work on Outlook mobile so still have to use the webmail.

Does anyone know if there is a mobile web browser version of the Plusnet webmail/

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

jab1 — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:32:04 GMT

Not getting at you, @pdillon , but I'm always amazed people don't install a proper mail client - they are available for both laptops/desktops and mobile devices.

PN webmail works exactly the same on a mobile device as on a desktop/laptop.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Townman — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 13:00:15 GMT

@jab1 I think that @pdillon is asking if there is a mobile phone responsive layout version of webmail - the answer is that this is Roundcube Webmail - if there is a responsive version of that product (which I doubt), it has not been adopted by Plusnet.

They do not indicate what type of mobile phone they have. The built-in mail application on iPhones is excellent. Other products are available for iPhone and androids, but I have not found any to be better, indeed most are quite inferior, including the cut down version of Outlook.

Any decent email application should have search facility to do this task.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

jab1 — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 13:00:34 GMT

OK, @Townman - thinking about it after re-reading their post, you are right. 😁

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

bobpullen — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 13:15:57 GMT

@Townman wrote:

... if there is a responsive version of that product (which I doubt), it has not been adopted by Plusnet.

There is, but the fact Plusnet haven't adopted it remains true.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

pdillon — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 19:41:36 GMT

I have an email client on my mobile however for some reason I struggle to get Plusnet email to work on it. Every other email address I have for my business and personal work on it.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

jab1 — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 19:43:14 GMT

Which phone/which client?

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

MisterW — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 19:47:41 GMT

That's probably because many wmail clients try to do an automatic setup by 'guessing' the servers and username from the email address. You need to force a manual setup, specifying the servers and usernames yourself.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

pdillon — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 20:09:53 GMT

I have done manual setups. I just leave it now. Android 12 Outlook 365

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Capvermell — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 07:26:12 GMT

A couple of times recently I have had problems logging in to my sipgate.co.uk voip account because they suddenly added an additional security procedure to entering my user name and password on their website of also sending me an email with a code in it I have to enter on their website too in order to log in. Back in February this email took many hours to arrive and yesterday it didn't arrive at all.

So I logged in to my Plusnet account expecting to go to my email controls and to whitelist sipgate.co.uk, sipgate.com and sipgate.de under spam filtering in case that was the issue. Except that there is now no way at all to access any of the email spam filtering controls on my account including whitelisting and blacklisting individual domains and/or email addresses and no way to set up or remove individual sub email boxes on my main plusnet email domain.

I have raised a ticket about this but all these email account controls went missing quite some months ago and have not come back unless of course the issue is only associated with my own particular Plusnet email accounts?

Subsequently I managed to get through to the sipgate.co.uk UK customer service line after a longish wait and they were able to deactivate the additional security measure that insists on also sending me an email with a code in it to gain access to my Sipgate account. They also currently admitted that they had a problem with these emails not being sent out and/or reaching customers for whatever reasons and hence why they were keen to turn off this aspect of their security process.

So I would be interested to know if other Plusnet email users can still access their email account controls including spam filtering and creating or deleting sub mail boxes on their main Plusnet email domain? I have raised a ticket with Plusnet to look in to the issue.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

jab1 — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 07:31:51 GMT

@Capvermell This should be in a topic of its own, but I can get into my email controls with no issue. What exactly is your problem?

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Capvermell — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 07:42:42 GMT

@jab1 Obviously I can start my own thread on the issue but I did also wonder if the spam filtering and other email controls had gone missing for not just myself but all Plusnet email users as some kind of prelude to the email service being shut down, which is the topic being discussed in this thread. After all if you couldn't change email whitelisting or blacklisting controls or set up new sub email boxes that would be a pretty effective way to encourage customers to take steps to start moving their email services elsewhere, even if the email service itself was not going to be shut down until some well announced date in the substantially more distant future.

I was given a direct link to the email controls by a member of staff on the phone customer services team but that link led to a 404 domain not found error in my case, even though I was logged in to my Plusnet account at the time.

EDIT:- Also if the issue is only affecting my account and not users of Plusnet email in general that makes it more of a customer service ticket issue rather than one that needs its own separate discussion thread.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

jab1 — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 08:22:20 GMT

OK, I understand. The way I get into mine is: 'Manage Account>scroll to foot of page>Manage your Plusnet mailboxes.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Capvermell — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 08:32:56 GMT

@jab1 My problem is I can't find any menus in my member accounts that will take me to my email controls and Plusnet customer services gave me a direct URL to the controls that also didn't work and produced a 404 page not found error.

They logged a support ticket about this yesterday late morning and I am still currently waiting to hear back from anyone at Plusnet customer services about the issue.

I can still pull down my own emails from my Plusnet email accounts using Mozilla Thunderbird via Pop without any issues of any kind.

The funny thing is these email account controls went missing several months ago and haven't come back but as long as I don't need to alter spam filtering or set up new sub email boxes on my main Plusnet domain it doesn't cause me any further issues. But that is why I thought the problem might have been associated with Plusnet's apparent deliberate long term run down in service of the email facilities (essentially throughout the time since Plusnet was acquired by BT) it is providing to customers including not making them available to any new customers over the last several years.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

Capvermell — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 08:38:11 GMT

@jab1 When I go in to Manage Your Account I then get a message saying "Change already in progress
You are not currently allowed to make a change. There is already a change in progress. Please try again later" that has been there for quite a long time now (many months) and this seems to stop me accessing any of the email account controls and spam filtering features since there is no menu then lets me access them.

But I was able to whitelist and blacklist new email addresses up to 6 to 12 months or so ago as far as I can recall it.

Re: Is the email service being withdrawn or not ?

jab1 — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 08:39:38 GMT

So you don't see tis at the foot of your 'Manage Account' page?