Madasafish Domain transfer

[#1]

HI there,
This is my first post and I'm a VERY new Plusnet customer (MAC code just submitted for move from TalkTalk/Tiscali)
I was with Freenetname and then Madasafish as a dialup customer for well over ten years and my domain (www.glandore.co.uk) was locked into my original Freenetname account and then into my Madasafish account.
When I found out that dialup was being discontinued by Madasafish, I made the decision to move to Plusnet. Having the option of superfast fibre in our location from November 2014 was a big factor in the move from our previous ISP TalkTalk/Tiscali which was unable to provide superfast fibre broadband access here.
So my question is this - how do I move my domain over to Plusnet and can I still use my previous (originally Freenetname then subsequently Madasafish) personal email address?
This domain name is very important to me, having had it for ten years  since the name is part of our business name. There is a LOT of history to it and I can't even administer it at the moment.
Please can anyone help?

[#2]

Hi there,
From what I can ascertain the Freenetname account is still active (it's just the dial-up access that's been revoked) so your domain should still work, and you should still be able to FTP to the server space using the usual credentials.
You could move the domain to your Plusnet account, however you're not offered any webspace there, so there'd be nowhere to host your actual website content. It would only be good for email; you'd also need to reconfigure all of your email clients to start picking mail up from your Plusnet mailbox rather than the Freenetname one.
My personal recommendation would be to keep things as they are for the time being.

[#3]

Hi, I'm another newcomer.  I do envy the oldies their webspace. The one thing I'm missing from my move from Virgin is the absence of any personal webspace for newcomers.  I've had to find a separate webspace host.
Forgive my jumping in, in semi-ignorance, but I'm uneasy on one point.  I see that Freenetname, Madasafish, and PlusNet are all associated.  Bob, am I right in interpreting your advice as based on the premiss that  Glandore will  definitely retain her free Freenetname/Madasafish webspace, because of the association, even after leaving Madasafish?

[#4]

Quote from: lemming

Bob, am I right in interpreting your advice as based on the premiss that  Glandore will  definitely retain her free Freenetname/Madasafish webspace, because of the association, even after leaving Madasafish?

Unless I'm mistaken, the Freenetname account is a non-paid dial-up account that offers both a domain name and webspace (crazy, I know). Whilst we have recently decommissioned the dial-up racks used by these accounts, we haven't touched any of the other features (email, hosting etc.) and they should continue to work as they always have (unless the OP has explicitly asked for the account to be cancelled).

[#5]

Thanks Bob, duly reassured.
Glandorescilly, as you're the personal registrant of the domain name, I  think you can count on its being yours for as long as you want, so long as the annual fee gets paid.

[#6]

Thanks Bob and Lemming for your replies 

Quote

Glandorescilly, as you're the personal registrant of the domain name, I  think you can count on its being yours for as long as you want, so long as the annual fee gets paid.

You see, this is part of my dilemma. The domain name was included in the dialup Freenetname/Madasafish account. However I was also locked into using that dialup account to access FTP for the domain name - I couldn't upload anything using my TalkTalk connection.
I confess, I haven't actually tried to FTP glandore.co.uk for a while because of this but hopefully it will now work using my Plusnet connection (which isn't due to be 'live' for another month  ) I see that the whois gives the following details
Registrar:
    Plusnet Plc [Tag = MADASAFISH]
    URL: http://www.madasafish.com
Name servers:
    ns1.force9.net
    ns2.force9.net
Yes, I am the personal registrant but I haven't paid annual domain fees for the entire time that I've had the domain name which seems incredible but that's the situation 
Now I need to know not whether I have to pay the domain name fees (no problem there) but how and who to? I can't assume that Plusnet will pay the fees for me as Freenetname/Madasafish did for the last ten years. So who will contact me in August to tell me that the domain name expires in September and needs to be renewed & paid for?
I'd be perfectly happy to initiate a transfer from Madasafish to 123-reg which hosts our other domain names and our webspace. Can I do that?
Although I have 100Mb free webspace, I found it to be quite slow so instead I just have a very long-standing 'hub' page index giving links to our websites which are hosted by a different hosting company. This is why I was so anxious about losing the domain name in moving ISPs
I'm very glad to hear that I can retain my original Freenetname personal address though 
Thank you both for the information 

[#7]

Quote from: glandorescilly

I confess, I haven't actually tried to FTP glandore.co.uk for a while because of this but hopefully it will now work using my Plusnet connection...

Yes, it should work fine.

Quote from: glandorescilly

Now I need to know not whether I have to pay the domain name fees (no problem there) but how and who to? I can't assume that Plusnet will pay the fees for me as Freenetname/Madasafish did for the last ten years.

To be honest, I suspect that's exactly what will happen. Clearly, it makes little commercial sense for us, but until a decision is made to the contrary then I suspect the Freenetname domains will continue to get renewed.

Quote from: glandorescilly

I'd be perfectly happy to initiate a transfer from Madasafish to 123-reg which hosts our other domain names and our webspace. Can I do that?

You should be able to do that using the Madasafish website, you'll be charged £25.54 for the privilege though.

Quote from: glandorescilly

Although I have 100Mb free webspace, I found it to be quite slow so instead I just have a very long-standing 'hub' page index giving links to our websites which are hosted by a different hosting company. This is why I was so anxious about losing the domain name in moving ISPs

Long term I think you'd be wise to transfer the domain to your hosting provider.

[#8]

Thanks Bob.
It looks like I'm going to have to wait a month before I can get an engineer's visit to be connected to Plusnet anyway so I'll have plenty of time to consider my options 

Quote

You should be able to do that using the Madasafish website, you'll be charged £25.54 for the privilege though

At least it's cheaper than it was - I think I was quoted about £75 when I enquired a couple of years ago 
Once the dust has settled, I will probably switch the domain to our hosting provider.
Thanks again for your quick and helpful replies