TPG no longer doing Email

Digital Rights
21

Well I assumed that since Proton mail uses a TLD of .me, it was Montenegro. But apparently that country is perfectly happy to let anyone use it.

So why would a Swiss company use it?

22

You read far too much into this decision.

There are RSPs under the umbrella of TPG. They all run Atmail software on their own servers to provide email to their customers. They pay for admin and tech staff to manage that.

Why not just cloud it off to the company that actually provides the email software and has now started up a business to do just that?

Isn’t this the same sort of thing as Microsoft 365?

23

For the same reason companies register in the ccTLDs of .to and .cc and .ly etc. - they want something that reads nicely (in English) for marketing purposes.

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24

Montenegro isn’t alone in commercialising its TLD. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domains_with_commercial_licenses.

Why would entities use those domains when they have no association with the country in question? Probably for convenience, to meet customer demand, and to keep up with current trends.

Microsoft uses .ms (Montserrat) for short links to their sites - eg, aka.ms. Google uses .gl (Greenland) similarly - eg, Goo.gl. Proton’s customers might have wanted the free email address options to include @proton.me or @pm.me, not just @protonmail.ch.

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25

If this is the case, it is another reason not to use them. Which I have moved to other provider today.

If they have been managing TPG emails for their business, under their management we have had significant email outages (web and POP/IMAP access) over the past few years (two I am aware of
but could be more - the maximum loss of service was over 36 hours from when we noticed). I have never had such problems with any other email service provider. The loss of services was disrupting and doesn’t leave a good impression.

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26

Hmmm - I did the porting transaction 2 days ago, ie: 26 July - I think they are dreaming if they are going to make contact AT LEAST 60 days before 15 September - Fred

27

Yes, 60 days was the 17 July. TPG must have invented a time machine :crazy_face:.

28

Sorry but what? TPG have been managing their email service, and by the sound of your experience not very well. On the other hand, Internode have managed my email service without fault for many years.

Same software, Atmail, but different management.

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29

Thought it is 15 September 2024, ie, Next Year!

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30

Oh, you are right. It becomes inoperable this year if you don’t agree to migrate the address over. Confused my years.

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31

A very good reason to check out choice’s recent review of internet providers and move on. I was with iiNet for years until TPG took it over and turned it from a first class provider into TPG with a different name.

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32

Another useful data point - if one is willing to wade through the data, is

There is also a disparity between those who need support and how much and those able to provide their own support save for reporting ‘down’ to the RSP. A good call centre can be invaluable. AussieBB seems to consistently be atop that metric.

Locally there has been a common disconnect between the power company causing a power loss to a local NBN ‘pit’ and NBN knowing [not] about it - it gets tedious when NBN posts it as being ‘under investigation’ while the power company shows a planned (or less often unplanned) outage and voila, up the NBN comes shortly after the power out window is over. Magic? It is difficult to know whether any RSP is better than another in those cases beyond time on hold (if any) and how tech savvy the support agents really are


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33

Hmmm - TPG doesn’t seem to be keen on email. I work for a small business, our email accounts were hosted by iiNet which is owned by TPG.

Recently, on a Friday afternoon we were advised that iiNet was not going to be hosting email any longer and the service would end the following Monday. We would have to find a new provider. The business has been operating since 2017 so I had two days to back up six years of emails for the owner and myself.

In a panic I called iiNet and was told that the cutoff date had been extended for a month but I wasn’t sure if I was being told the truth or not. There was nothing on their website about the extension and I felt the call centre consultant was fobbing me off.

I purchased a solid state drive and set about backing up all our emails - losing them would have been a catastrophe.

Luckily the extension date was correct and I was able to complete the task but we are very disappointed by the lack of communication from iiNet.

I looked on Twitter and saw that other customers with problems were getting responses from iiNet so I tweeted about this - no response, no apology, no nothing.

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34

Same here - very disappointed in TPG

35

Well I registered myself with The Messaging Company today, and await my mail service to be transferred over from Internode.

I want to keep my email addresses, and that will happen.

I want to keep all my old emails in the folders including inbox, and that will happen.

I want a free email service for the time being, and that will happen until September next year as the TPG companies will be paying TMG on my behalf.

And I look forward to seeing how they go given that they will be running the mail software and interface I am used to and setting up some new email addresses in the event that in over a year’s time I may decide to try another RSP and will be independent of them for email.

Seems like a good move to me.

36

I have unanswered questions with TMG.

  • What level of security they have? TPG had none and requested the customer agree to take all risks.
  • Do they have a Scam reporting address and will they actively prevent scams? TPG had postmaster@tpg.com.au, but just ignored them, even ones in TPG’s name from a TPG account.
  • Will they have a Post Office facility like TPG had? If I had internet, I could go to the TPG site, log on and read my emails, independent of my computer and email client. Eg on holidays, on mobile or when the power was off.
  • What cost?
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37

I think with your third point, that is Webmail. That is pretty much standard and all I ever use for email. Don’t use any clients.

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38

Yes TPG had webmail, but only kept emails for 45 days after which they were deleted. Their answer to saving emails was to continually forward them to yourself before the 45 days were up.

There was no filtering available, although they did send some addresses to Spam, that I wanted (mostly gmail & hotmail addresses) and sent blatant scams to my Inbox. Including those from TPG accounts directing to fake websites to harvest their customers’ user name, password & credit card. I got one yesterday with the address popping up a “This message is from a trusted sender” next to the Sender’s address. I got another today. I always report these to Scamwatch and to TPG. But still they come! Surely they could block anything with the same body text?

I just hope TMG is more than a “take the money and run” enterprise.

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39

Well if you normally use an email client, then it doesn’t make much sense for the server to keep copies of what you have downloaded indefinitely. Lucky copies are kept for as long as 45 days I would think.

Since I never use clients, the emails stay on the server until I delete them. And even then deleted emails go into the trash folder and stay there until either deleted or recovered. So far the oldest is getting on 20 years in a folder.

40

I don’t use an email client (Thunderbird etc) as their set-up instructions was “no security”, then customer tick box assuming all risk. I felt that was unacceptable, but they never relented. Their servers delete all messages after 45 days, so if you don’t download them, they are gone.

I moved my husband away from BigPond because of their low storage threshold. He was not getting messages because his inbox on their server was full and it was a task to delete the ones he didn’t want to keep.

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