TPG recently announced it was looking to phase out email, hosting and webspace services, to focus on its core businesses: mobile and internet services. This decision affects thousands of customers using well-established services including Adam, iiNet, Internode, OzEmail and Westnet as well as TPG. As part of this transition, TPG plans to migrate mail hosting services to “The Messaging Company”. It’s a real company that has been providing paid email services on behalf of providers for twenty years. This migration is slated to finish by the end of November. Guess how long-time customers are feeling about it? If “angry” was one of the words you thought of, that’d be putting it politely.
A lot of the resentment is due to how the communication around the whole circus was handled. Are there are any silver linings though, in this storm of unrest? Maybe we’ll find a couple ahead.
Why'd they have to go and do that?
Two decades ago, the world was still untarnished by AI chatbots and many people relied on ISP email services. Those offered by Telstra, iINet and Internode were popular choices. (Heck, I even had a Dodo email account at some point. Anyone remember those guys?) It provided a convenient way to access email services bundled with your 10Mbps internet plan.
Nowadays, it’s all about the money. TPG is small fry when compared to Google and Microsoft, who are the two dominant Kaijus of email provisioning. The cost for offering and maintaining an email service have gone up significantly and if you don’t have the economies of scale to justify it, you’re bleeding cash.
Not to mention, if you aren’t constantly keeping up with Exchange patches, which is a time-consuming job by itself, you run the risk of leaving yourself open to cybersecurity breaches.
Stop the cash drain, send customers to a professional service provider, reduce security risk and Bob’s your uncle right? Well, kinda. Except they told you that the visit to Uncle Bob was permanent, just as they were opening the car door.
Our mysterious benefactor, The Messaging Company is going to give all TPG-empire castaways 12 months of free service. What’s up with them?
The Messaging Company
The Messaging Company (TMC) isn’t a household name, but plays a critical role in TPG’s grand plan. They will host all your email addresses moving forward if you decide to opt-in. The service is free for the first 12 months, after which you switch to a payment plan.
“Who are these guys?” You may ask. Well, TMC is a fully owned subsidiary of Atmail, a homegrown Aussie business established in 1998. They’ve built a reputation for offering robust email services and solutions to ISPs worldwide.
So, these guys know what they’re doing and apart from some initial teething trouble, it should be ok. Having said that, what are the potential problems people could face?
No TPG email, Mo' Problems
Here, we’ll check out some of the problems that have been reported by people who opted to migrate to TMC.
Burst of spam
Users reported seeing a large number of spam emails coming into their inbox after migrating to TMC. This might be because:
- The “atmail” server used by TMC MX records does not have the spam filter turned on
- Users have to manually update their settings in the atmail web client
Loss of Inbox emails in webmail
A user has had an issue where they’ve lost about six years’ worth of email from their webmail Inbox. This issue does not seem to affect the webmail Sentbox or the folders in the desktop email client.
Emails stop working on phone
It’s possible to see cases where emails stop working on your phone. This is because the domain you use via TPG’s umbrella of companies might have issues.
If it’s all doom and gloom then why bother moving to TMC?
Where are all the good vibes?
As we said before, with a large-scale migration like this, there are bound to be teething troubles. Our amazing techs have worked on large-scale data migrations for big companies before and there are always issues. But after going through all the user feedback, we think jumping onto TMC might be a good move for the following reasons:
Freedom from your ISP
People having an email tied to their ISP is one of the most common reasons for not moving. This prevents them from taking advantage of cheaper internet service deals. If you move to TMC, you aren’t tied to an ISP anymore and are free to choose the best deal.
Better security and features
Start from a clean slate
You know what? Why not get a new email address and start from scratch? Just think of all the junk piling up in your TPG email that’s destined to rot for eternity. If you bite the bullet, start afresh and are more judicious with what you sign up for, you’ll have heaps less junk to deal with. Plus you’ll insure yourself against all the data breaches that have been going on for the past couple of years.
Feeling a little better now? That’s good. Take a few seconds to breathe, then let’s look at what options we have if we jump the TPG ship.
Four choices to consider
As we brace ourselves in the lifeboat and look around, there are four distinct choices on how to move ahead once you paddle away from the sinking ship that is TPG’s email provisioning umbrella.
The Messaging Company
A 12 month offer with an experienced email service provider that converts into a paid plan after? And you get to keep your old TPG email address? That’s a pretty good deal if you have one email account and don’t want to bother with the hassle of changing your account details on the 137 services you signed up with. TMC is a bit coy with their pricing info, so worst case, you squat there for a few months while you evaluate the other options.
Gmail, Outlook and other free providers
Paid email providers
Ok, you’re hipster. You want to go with a better email provider than TMC. After some research, we’re happy to recommend the following providers that are simple, secure and have good functionality:
Getting your own domain
Go big or go home. If you’re going to change your email address, why not have it as yourname@somethingfunny.com? There’s a bit of extra effort here in choosing your domain, but it comes with the perks of being completely unique. Here are a few hosting providers you can check out:
Buzzline
Specialisation and subscription models for niche services are the most efficient money-earners for companies. It’s a sad state of affairs in some ways, and sometimes it really pisses me off. But hey, you gotta roll with the times. If you need help configuring your new email address, moving your old emails to your new service provider or even re-signing up for all the services where you have your username and email linked – give us a buzz.