Plusnet email moving to Greenby

[#1]

My PlusNet email was OFF again this morning - then actually collected the emails on Thunderbird after a ten minute wait. Can you imagine the impact for a business? Still presumably PlusNet with its friendly Yorkshire accented adverts is very much a retail based service.

I really liked my Force 9 email address, which I've been using since 1994 - at which time Force 9 broke the price barrier by offering dial-up internet for £84 a YEAR when competitors, Line One, CIX, Daemon etc charged £9.99 PER MONTH I seem to recall. The only other "Cheapie" was a weird one called Screaming.Net which did free phone calls on your dialup but you had to migrate your phone line to them.

I suppose we could say 2025 pricing is very reasonable compared to 1994 - and even my cooper line broadband is like lightning compared to dial-up.

But where is the reliability in the current BT/OpenReach/PlusNet/Force9/GREENBY outsourcing arrangement?

[#2]

But where is the reliability in the current BT/OpenReach/PlusNet/Force9/GREENBY outsourcing arrangement?

@ColdharbourDave the current transfer of the email service only affects Plusnet (and vISPs they have taken over (Force9/Metronet &c), and has nothing to do with Openreach.

As @Townman has said elsewhere, this is a massive undertaking, and from my experience, unfortunately, it can be prone to unforeseen glitches. Once the transfer to a dedicated hosting/email service is complete, things should be much better.  

[#3]

Well who exactly are Greenby? They must feel that their service will pay for itself somehow.

According to the Greenby website linked to by PlusNet, they are part of ENIX group.

Bloomberg says Enix Limited doing business as HostPresto, operates as a web hosting company. The company offers cloud web, wordpress, email and reseller hosting, as well as VPS, website development and web designing services (in the United Kingdom).
As I don't have a Bloomberg subscription that's all I can see.

 Meanwhile the Greenby login page says

Don't call us - we'll call you as they say in chow biz!

[#4]

At least if OpenReach aren't involved that has to be seen as a positive.

[#5]

I see that relay.free-online.net is now pointing to mail.freeonline.enmail.co so that is also underway. 

Will the CNAME be left in the DNS permanently or will we need to change server names at some point? 

Will the plus.net SPF "include" records also be maintained/updated? I have that set for my own domain so that I can send from relay.plus.net.

In fact. will the whole DNS setup be maintained, or what changes will users need to make?

[#6]

This is all coming over as a top level management pencil pusher decision, who did not take the advise from the people who actually know what''s going on. You can just imagine the board level discussion,

Next item on the agenda, Greenby have offered us £5 million over the next 5 years to take over our customers email accounts, this will result in a £7 million saving on server costs over the period. All those in favour, okay, Unanimous, vote carried.

3 months later when the contract is signed & the technical team are advised, the next conversation went like

Do you realise what in involved in this undertaking & how much manpower & work is involved, no I didn't think so, [-Censored-] packet calculation this is going to take £15 million over the next 5 years to implement & we're likely to lose 10% revenue due it it.

[#7]

Well it's slightly better than the original plan to just drop email completely! If that had happened I'd have jumped ship as it was (and still is) email that really ties me to PlusNet. But when it's at Greenby I'll see what FibreCity can manage, it was run outside here years ago. And I already have Virgin cable so plenty of choice for pure broadband. I have my landline number to think about too, I see there's something about a transfer to EE which I might have to look at.

[#8]

@Phaeton Your Boardroom comments are pure speculative rubbish. It looks like Plusnet are just moving to supplying a no frills Internet access system only. You have choices, go your own way or accept the deal on offer.................

[#9]

@Champnet Oh dear it seems like my lampoon was a little too close for comfort for you was it, does the truth hurt?

I can remember & knew most of the board back in the mid 90's, they knew what they were doing, did they get it right all the time? No they did not, but at least they understood what they were doing & understood the consequences of their actions.

[#10]

No idea what you’re talking about,

[#11]

SPF has been updated to include Greenby SMTP server for those accounts which have been migrated.  That said the change to access via the proxy servers has no material impact until an individual’s account is migrated.

[#12]

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@Champnet wrote:

No idea what you’re talking about,

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That is quite clearly evident, you have a good rest of your evening 

[#13]

@Townman Glad to hear that, thanks. I'm using the  _spf-internal.plus.net and _spf-internal2.plus.net  includes which I expect will be updated in due course (i.e. not yet), can you give me the names of ones that have been updated? As you say, it's not necessary yet as the PlusNet server is still seen as the outgoing source.

[#14]

The free for 2 years bit bothers me.

Is it best to lie low, or to engage and open a Greenby account when offered?

No doubt they will issue t & c for their service.

[#15]

I shall open the Greenby account as soon as it is available, retaining control over the email A/Cs is important.