O2 bail out of pop3 e-mail services and marketing

[Anonymous]

Re: O2 to close e-mail service in June 2016

I have tried to speak/e-mail O2 direct, however, it is an impossible task, you only get automated, none question answering response systems or a 'chat' advisor that who is just reading from a prepared crib sheet.

When O2 sold their broadband to Sky and transferred its broadband customers, it was promised that the o2 e-mail accounts would be preserved and supported.  I have an O2 mobile phone account and e-mail.  If O2 break there promise to preserve the SMPT pop 3 e-mail service... then I shall end my account with O2 altogether.  O2 will have lost a customer. 

How can a supposedly major world networking company like O2 not maintain an e-mail facility!  E-mailing is not yet obsolete in this age of texting, Skype and social media.  For serious communications and forum feedback it is still the preferred medium.  O2 is making a BIG mistake by dropping it's e-mail servers.  For gawds sake how much investment and man-power does it take to maintain an SMPT pop 3 server.  If O2 is that hard up for money and resources it must be close to being on its knee's. 

Think of the advertising coverage that you are losing by not having your 'O2' brand logo on millions of e-mails networking the world!  Perhaps you should be asking your marketing people before you pull the plug on the O2 e-mail, the cost of maintaining it must be nominal, the returns in advertising and company presence is priceless... let alone as a doorway for people to sign up to a 4G O2 phone contract.   Certainly Microsoft (Hotmail/Outlook), Google (Gmail) and Yahoo are spreading their brand name by encouraging users to sign up with branded web-based e-mail accounts.

Possibly O2 have the wrong people making these decisions... I know if I was head of O2 marketing I would be spitting nails at such a proposal to diminish the O2 profile.

JamesH

On 09-Mar-16 5:21 PM, O2 wrote:

O2 closing down e-mail serves for its cusomers on June 7th 2016

[jonsie]

Discussed at length here.....

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/O2-Webmail-is-closing-More-info-inside/m-p/955180/highligh...

[Cleoriff]

Hi @Anonymous

I can understand your concerns but the fact remains that O2 started closing down their webmail servers 3 years ago. Every client at that time was given notice of this. Unless you migrated broadband to Sky people were losing connectivity.  The notice that came out ealier this month was O2 giving a final warning....

You will have to find a new email client asap because we believe this will be a phased shut down....and some may well close before 7th June and consequently lose their emails and important documents......

[sheepdog]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Re: O2 to close e-mail service in June 2016

I have tried to speak/e-mail O2 direct, however, it is an impossible task, you only get automated, none question answering response systems or a 'chat' advisor that who is just reading from a prepared crib sheet.

When O2 sold their broadband to Sky and transferred its broadband customers, it was promised that the o2 e-mail accounts would be preserved and supported.  I have an O2 mobile phone account and e-mail.  If O2 break there promise to preserve the SMPT pop 3 e-mail service... then I shall end my account with O2 altogether.  O2 will have lost a customer. 

How can a supposedly major world networking company like O2 not maintain an e-mail facility!  E-mailing is not yet obsolete in this age of texting, Skype and social media.  For serious communications and forum feedback it is still the preferred medium.  O2 is making a BIG mistake by dropping it's e-mail servers.  For gawds sake how much investment and man-power does it take to maintain an SMPT pop 3 server.  If O2 is that hard up for money and resources it must be close to being on its knee's. 

Think of the advertising coverage that you are losing by not having your 'O2' brand logo on millions of e-mails networking the world!  Perhaps you should be asking your marketing people before you pull the plug on the O2 e-mail, the cost of maintaining it must be nominal, the returns in advertising and company presence is priceless... let alone as a doorway for people to sign up to a 4G O2 phone contract.   Certainly Microsoft (Hotmail/Outlook), Google (Gmail) and Yahoo are spreading their brand name by encouraging users to sign up with branded web-based e-mail accounts.

Possibly O2 have the wrong people making these decisions... I know if I was head of O2 marketing I would be spitting nails at such a proposal to diminish the O2 profile.

JamesH

@Anonymous 09-Mar-16 5:21 PM, O2 wrote:

O2 closing down e-mail serves for its cusomers on June 7th 2016

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Actually it does cost a bit of money to pay money to host the server in a data centre. Even its a physical server the cost to move it into a Virtual Server is bluntly put, not worth it as they don't have the volume of customers using it now they've sold off the broadband arm. Then there's the cost of paying for support of the legacy service and as I can tell you from first hand experience working in this type of field, unless you have an active service paying serious money to support the service for a decent sized user base, legacy knowledge disappears or erodes to nothing over time as people move on. 

We all know o2 have been making cost cutting exercises and ultimately the smtp service obviously didn't justify the maintenance cost so it had to go. The best way to avoid this is to  get yourself a dedicated paid-for email hosting (lots around) and skip past the free i.e. ad-supported email services like yahoo, gmail etc. 

[jonsie]

^^^^

and there you have it from someone who knows. Accept it and get yourself a proper email client....

[MI5]

It had to be the worst and most basic of services anyway. Beats me why anyone ever bothered with it?

[jonsie]

Beats the hell out of me too....

[Bambino]

Never ceases to amaze me that two and a half years after it was announced that the servers would be gradually shutting down that there are still people using O2 mail, and still complaining that it's going. 

[MI5]

Inevitable unfortunately mate.

[Anonymous]

Well, some people are still with O2 because when they moved O2 broadband customers to Sky both Sky and O2 promised that the O2 e-mail services would be maintained.  Their was no warning about them closing down until a few weeks ago when they just switched them off with no prior notification.  Each company blamed the other for not issuing a disconnection date. Due to the high volume of complaints from people having their smpt server cut off at the knees... they switched them on again with a closure date of 7th June.  Depending on what your customer status was with O2 seems to have determined what if any notice you recieved. 

Fortunately I have two other web-based pop3 e-mail accounts, one for serious stuff, a second for junk/chuck away stuff and this O2 account where I have some comtacts going back several years that is going to cause me some degree of hassle to notify them of a new AD.  Lesson learned... never sign up to an ISP e-mail account, this is the second one that's gone ****** up for moi... and they just don't give a damb. 

I will be dumping my O2 mob phone for another company... O2 won't care of course, but when millions do the same it might attact thier attention. 

James