Eir to charge customers €5.99 per month

Marlow

Boozybooze wrote: »

Complete and utter nonsense, its an 18MB attachement, not streaming 4K on Netflix.

That can't even be compared. But even if the limit on Eirs mail server was higher than 18MB, it would fail on the receiving server. Typical limits for mail size is 50MB and that is because mail (also due to its overheads) never was designed for file distribution. And the typical limit used to be 10 MB

That is one of the reasons services like Dropbox exist.

Boozybooze wrote: »

If your friend is paying that much for decent broadband he is obviously not in a city and to get the service implemented there it cost a forune.

Also the price he is paying there is probably for a gigabit connection but anyone i know in the U.S are paying around 80 dollars for 250 MB.

No. He is in a decent size city. And I know more than one example like that. Also cable operators over there don't have the Eurodocsis standard, so they can not even offer anywhere near the speeds you get here.

/M

Fogmatic

For years, some of the eircom.net emails I've sent have failed to get through (most of them at least to people outside Ireland e.g. UK).
I've wondered for years if that's Eircom's historical spam problems coming back to haunt them. I don't know how often, if ever, ISPs' blacklists are updated? And if domains are taken off the lists when they improve? (And how many busy tech workers overseas would realise that eircom.net is/was a nationwide domain somewhere?). If that is a problem (or one of them) re emails getting through, I suppose it's unlikely to be solved any time soon.

In my experience, eir/eircom is now very good at blocking spam; I can't remember the last time any got to my inbox (just get the occasional false positive). But while clearing out my emails the other day I was reminded of the old days by some lovely examples in the Junk folder, including one from the US Treasury, ordered by the United Nations and the World Bank to make me a dollar billionaire, and one selling t-shirts from a Chinese-sounding domain, addressed to someone with my first name and a Verizon address. (It was like when I first got online back in 2000, and a list of us hopeful Irish business startups (all starting with the same letter) got spammed, going on to apparently spamming each other for years!).

Gadgetman496

Boozybooze wrote: »

I'm pretty sure you can configure Eircom mail with a desktop client such as Outlook or Thunderbird

Correct, I used it that way for years before I dumped my eir email addresses & never had any issue sending from them. Unless of course something has changed since then?

paulboland

Boozybooze wrote: »

I'm pretty sure you can configure Eircom mail with a desktop client such as Outlook or Thunderbird

Yes eircom email address works with Outlook and other Email software programs

You send email using your ISP Server details
You can even setup Gmail to send using eircom email address or other email programs to use Gmail server


The issue will be after March 31st unless you pay the €5.99 a month your Eircom email address will be deleted after 60 days
If you don't pay the €5.99 a month you wont be able to receive or send using a eircom email address as it will no longer exist
So using likes of Outlook or Thunderbird etc will no longer work with a eircom email address after it's been deleted

The main issue is Eir have not sent the email about the change happening from March 31st to every eircom email address still in use

There is thousands of active eircom email address still in use

A lot of eircom email address users have never even used Eir Webmail as they not had any reason to goto Eir Website to access Webmail as they used other methods to send and receive emails with an eircom email address


Eir need to send details of change that is happening from March 31st to every eircom email address as in all of them so everyone is aware what is happening
If they don't do this there will be a lot of eircom email address users suddenly finding they not receiving any emails or not be able to send using a eircom email address due not been made aware about the change happening from March 31st


Eir have the right to decide to start charging for use of eircom email address or even do away with completely
What is very important is all are contacted so they can make alternate arrangements before their eircom email address is deleted or accept to pay for the use of eircom email address

The Boarder Man

paulboland wrote: »

Yes eircom email address works with Outlook and other Email software programs

You send email using your ISP Server details
You can even setup Gmail to send using eircom email address or other email programs to use Gmail server


The issue will be after March 31st unless you pay the €5.99 a month your Eircom email address will be deleted after 60 days
If you don't pay the €5.99 a month you wont be able to receive or send using a eircom email address as it will no longer exist
So using likes of Outlook or Thunderbird etc will no longer work with a eircom email address after it's been deleted

The main issue is Eir have not sent the email about the change happening from March 31st to every eircom email address still in use

There is thousands of active eircom email address still in use

A lot of eircom email address users have never even used Eir Webmail as they not had any reason to goto Eir Website to access Webmail as they used other methods to send and receive emails with an eircom email address


Eir need to send details of change that is happening from March 31st to every eircom email address as in all of them so everyone is aware what is happening
If they don't do this there will be a lot of eircom email address users suddenly finding they not receiving any emails or not be able to send using a eircom email address due not been made aware about the change happening from March 31st


Eir have the right to decide to start charging for use of eircom email address or even do away with completely
What is very important is all are contacted so they can make alternate arrangements before their eircom email address is deleted or accept to pay for the use of eircom email address

Thank you Paul. This is exactly the main issue here. I am another eircom.net email account user who never received any notice about this, and only heard about it today by chance. Stopping the service is one thing – clearly annoying, and a major headache for many. But not providing any advance notice is unprofessional, incompetent and irresponsible. Suddenly losing comms access to friends, relatives, loved ones, business contacts and service providers in one fell swoop could be devastating, and even dangerous to at-risk individuals.

P.S. For those looking for alternatives, I would recommend a Gmail account if you're not too concerned about Google's business model. The Gmail interface and search capability makes finding old emails a whole lot quicker than in Outlook. Though if you prefer to have access via an offline client then you can also log in to it via IMAP using a client such as Thunderbird (simple to use like the Outlook Express of old, with an "auto-detect" feature for setting up new accounts making it easier for those less technically savvy, but still powerful and a much better search function than Outlook. I've also found it useful in the past for backing up emails, and moving/syncing them between different accounts).
For those looking for better privacy I would recommend ProtonMail.

Wibbs

My eircom account is still down, no joy on email clients, webmail or mobile device. I know of one other person with the same issue since Friday. Unless they've decided to cull accounts a month in advance? And with no warning for many? Either way what a bunch of unprofessional halfwits and they expect payment for such a crappy service? Though as others have mused I reckon they had a meeting and decided to just scrap the service so don't give a damn.

That person whose eircom account is down I've migrated them to another email service and have them up and running again(elderly lass). Luckily she had a small enough address book so she's now fine. She's also a long term eir customer for her phone service, but her daughter is switching her from them to another service in the next few days. I'm moving mine too and have three others changing on the back of this mess.

cornflake1

Wibbs wrote: »

My eircom account is still down, no joy on email clients, webmail or mobile device. I know of one other person with the same issue since Friday. Unless they've decided to cull accounts a month in advance? And with no warning for many? Either way what a bunch of unprofessional halfwits and they expect payment for such a crappy service? Though as others have mused I reckon they had a meeting and decided to just scrap the service so don't give a damn.

That person whose eircom account is down I've migrated them to another email service and have them up and running again(elderly lass). Luckily she had a small enough address book so she's now fine. She's also a long term eir customer for her phone service, but her daughter is switching her from them to another service in the next few days. I'm moving mine too and have three others changing on the back of this mess.

Same thing here. Tried to login to my mother account to migrate what I could but can't get in. No error message appears.

Wibbs

Yeah, on email clients after a long try at connecting it returns an unable to verify account or password, on their webmail it connects instantly and then just comes up with a "blank" page. Like you say no error message. What the hell are they playing at? The least they might do is put up an alert or some information. It it were the end of March when their free service ends it would be piss poor show, but a month before? Especially if some users are willing to pay. It's not consistent either(big shock with those muppets), so a mate of mine who has an old eircom.net account is still receiving mails.

Fogmatic

One big upside of Gmail for me (that didn't really dawn till I started using it) is the phone notifications (no more going to webmail/webmail viewer just to see if an expected message has arrived).

I was tackling updating the websites first, to allow time for the awkward ones (and avoid a possible last-minute rush on them). But thanks to this thread I realised I'd better contact my friends with eircom addresses ASAP in case they missed the news (especially the ones who don't frequent our regular bar).

It was time for a break from the websites anyway, as it was getting like some troubleshooting sessions (losing the big picture after a while). I think it's the low-level stress of trying not to be annoyed at the less well-designed sites, especially when they're government related. One symptom last night was going to My Three login to top up the phone and wondering why it suddenly required an email address but didn't recognise any of mine - until it dawned that I was at the My Eir login. (Spouse said I must have become an eirhead).

Snickers Man

I look in vain for any communication from eir on this matter at all. Even though I have had an eircom.net account for decades.

Not an eir subscriber for anything else (phone broadband TV etc) so don't know how they propose to contact me.

As my email address is all they know, it's surprising they haven't used it to inform me of the change.

How do we know this is true?

Fogmatic

Yes it is true, but re emailing people I think they're using 'customers' in the sense of 'people paying us for something', and it suits them not to clarify that (so they can just repeat that they've emailed their customers).

Snickers Man

So those of us with ancient (and still used) eircom.net accounts but who are not otherwise eir customers will just wake up one morning to find our email doesn't work?

Right?

All the feckin' about this will necessitate. online banking, software subs, ebay, amazon, netflix, ryanair, aerlingus.........

Jeez, hope I can remember them all before I shut it off.

And as for my boards.ie account.......;)

Fogmatic

Boards is one of the easy ones, Snickers Man!

But yes, I'm afraid so. And at some websites, finding/resetting the password is just the prelude to the real annoyances.

It isn't just eir who's been shedding old email addresses. (It seems to be all the rage among ISPs in the UK, where a lot of mergers/rebrands have meant a lot of email addesses going through multiple changes of ISP).

It's just occurred to me that there might be a more charitable explanation for the shortage of warnings from eir. Maybe if they emailed every eircom address, that would include those that already no longer exist because they've been genuinely abandoned, and if all those bounced it could swamp their system. Just speculation of course (some comms expert will probably put me right!).

Silent Running

I've been using an eircom.net e-mail address (among others) for decades and I'm currently an eir customer for broadband, home phone and 2 mobiles.

At this time I haven't received any communication from eir that this is happening. Not best pleased, if I'm honest.

Hotblack Desiato

brianhere wrote: »

our EU masters are probably compelling them to install all kinds of over the top spying mechanisms on the emails and that is what costs them too much to install so they prefer to drop the service.

:rolleyes:

adrian92

Snickers Man wrote: »

I look in vain for any communication from eir on this matter at all. Even though I have had an eircom.net account for decades.

Not an eir subscriber for anything else (phone broadband TV etc) so don't know how they propose to contact me.

As my email address is all they know, it's surprising they haven't used it to inform me of the change.

How do we know this is true?

I think it is.
I am a customer of Eir and phoned them to ask was this true and wad told that it is going to happen . My email already access blocked

blackbox

I have a friend who uses an eircom.net email address and, for business reasons, he is prepared to pay the monthly fee to continue it for a while.

He does not use eir for broadband or phone.

Like most people he has received no direct communication from eir about this.

He cannot find any links or mechanism where he can sign up and pay.

Does anyone know how he can sign up to pay?

paulboland

blackbox wrote: »

I have a friend who uses an eircom.net email address and, for business reasons, he is prepared to pay the monthly fee to continue it for a while.

He does not use eir for broadband or phone.

Like most people he has received no direct communication from eir about this.

He cannot find any links or mechanism where he can sign up and pay.

Does anyone know how he can sign up to pay?

Ability to setup payment is not until March 31st

Eir have said when you login into Webmail on the Eir website on March 31st you will be redirected to payment page

Problem is a lot of eircom email address users have never used Eir website webmail as they not had any reason to check emails using webmail as they got their emails using likes of Outlook and other similar email programs

Those that never used webmail before or not used in past 2 years a lot cant login to webmail on Eir website to see their emails using Webmail

Get your friend to check if their eircom email address username and password works on Webmail on Eir Website and they can access their emails

Eir needs to fix webmail before March 31st so those that want to setup payment on March 31st can do so

If payment is not setup the eircom emai address will be deleted 60 days after March 31st

With a lot of eircom emails users not used webmail this is why it's very important that all eircom email addresses get sent the email about what's happening from March 31st and they also fix webmail so it works for all eircom email address users

blackbox

paulboland wrote: »

Ability to setup payment is not until March 31st

Eir have said when you login into Webmail on the Eir website on March 31st you will be redirected to payment page

Problem is a lot of eircom email address users have never used Eir website webmail as they not had any reason to check emails using webmail as they got their emails using likes of Outlook and other similar email programs

Those that never used webmail before or not used in past 2 years a lot cant login to webmail on Eir website to see their emails using Webmail

Get your friend to check if their eircom email address username and password works on Webmail on Eir Website and they can access their emails

Eir needs to fix webmail before March 31st so those that want to setup payment on March 31st can do so

If payment is not setup the eircom emai address will be deleted 60 days after March 31st

With a lot of eircom emails users not used webmail this is why it's very important that all eircom email addresses get sent the email about what's happening from March 31st and they also fix webmail so it works for all eircom email address users

Thanks. He is able to access webmail OK.

I have two eircom addresses of my own, but strangely enough can only use webmail for one of them.

looksee

Small suggestion - when you start changing emails it will take much longer than you anticipate because they are all different and in some cases its almost impossible to change an email address. Bank of Ireland for example you have to go rooting in 'manage my statements', really intuitive!

However, when you start, keep a list of the ones you have changed...and a note of the progress you have made with the ones that require complicated stuff.

Hotblack Desiato

Why would your bank even have your email address? Totally undermines the idea of "we will never email you asking for your PIN" or whatever. All communication with you should be through their secure online portal, even "we have a notification for you" as this is phishing central.

I use online banking, my bank don't have my email address and there is no ability to add it to my online banking.

Fogmatic

Further to Looksee's suggestions, I found it useful to first list the names of all the websites I can think of that we still use (alphabetically in a digital document, to print out for writing more on, marking, making notes on; I found it helps to enter the most important/urgent ones in bold). I then gathered more websites from password lists and any relevant paperwork we have. I'm still on the first printout, having been doing some of the websites as I go along - but it's getting a bit crowded with handwritten sites, so I'll have to add them to the digital list soon and reprint. (This is with a middling number of websites to deal with; it'll be about 4 pages I think).

If everyone keeping their eircom addresses has to go to the eir site on the same day, won't that crash it?

dball

if you are using Chrome, there is a setting there that allows you to export the entire list of login(s) and passwords to an excel sheet.
could be a handy backup/shortcut from someone.

chrome://settings/passwords

Ctrl Alt Del

Hi guys,

Let me share my story with Eir latest webmail saga.
They are a great bunch of lads...

One of my end users have problems with the emails,since two weeks ago.
It just stopped workign,with no explanation.
I had to send an email to my end users to explain the story...


Hello,

Sorry for delay !

Called Eir technical support last week.
The techie confirmed there is a problem at their end as the account has been disabled due to some security issues.
He confirmed that will be enabled soon.
He gave a me a reference number.

Called again this week and spoke with a second techie that said it looks like the account has been re-enabled but is a login technical issue this time
Asked me to try few things which I did and still didn’t worked.
Been asked to reset the password trying the full name and / or short name, without the email field.

Called again yesterday and spoke with a third person.
The techie told me that the previous call has been closed, we have been notified.
How, dunno as the account is still disabled. No reply from him.
But he confirmed the account is still disabled due to a high security issues, basically the email account is sending out huge volume of spam and it needs to be checked from our end.
He asked me to scan for malware the PC in the office and all the computers on the network.
Once that done and confirmed, he will look at options.

Explained very abruptly that is a single computer that has this email account, it has full antivirus/antimalware protection up to date, I can show him the screenshot.
Asked why do I have to scan all the PCs on network if a single PC / single account !?
Told me that is the procedure.

When I told that I work in IT and hold various security certifications , he went viral.
I’ve asked him to supply me / send me the SMTP headers, some or any logs that proves that the account is sending the malware messages and they are originated from that PC or that IP address.
No guarantee that he can supply any of them either…
He gave me a second, another reference number and went to escalate the call higher level up.

I feel that they have no fcukign idea what to do and how to fix it.
I recommend copying the contacts and stop using that account.
Let me know how can I assist you from here… blah blah...changin to another email....

Thanks

plodder

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Why would your bank even have your email address? Totally undermines the idea of "we will never email you asking for your PIN" or whatever. All communication with you should be through their secure online portal, even "we have a notification for you" as this is phishing central.

I use online banking, my bank don't have my email address and there is no ability to add it to my online banking.

Bank of Ireland do it, though you can disable it. I don't think it's great practice either though. While they say they won't ever request PINs etc, and they don't have a clickable link on the email, they don't say they won't ever have a clickable link and someone could easily fake one of these notifications and include a link to God knows where.

Wibbs

Yep, my eircom account is still dead and from about the same time as your client(I know two others in a similar boat). Got the same BS from eir when I rang them about it. "Security issue" and when I pushed for an explanation was told my account is firing out spam. When I told them I was on a Mac, the muppet jumped on this suggesting they were "more likely to be used in spam mail". I kid thee not gentle reader. Now Macs can be a pain in the hole, but their built in email client is pretty far down the list of being open to email hijack. Never mind that I have antivirus, littlesnitch tracking traffic and other security up the wazzoo . It was pretty clear this guy had little actual notion of the OS, which can often help spot BS with such types.

So yeah it sounds like what you say CAD they have no fcuking clue what's going on, have screwed up somewhere and are leaving their reps to deal with complaints. Or they've been "hacked" themselves and some addresses have been hijacked and they shut them down to stop that, rather than actually plug the leak. Or and given the timing of their BS price gouging the higher ups just want to shut down the whole email section and this gives them another excuse.

Fogmatic

Wow. I thought eir not warning even all their current customers about this business really was the last straw, together with some people still being in the dark about their last eircom policy change, 2 years later. But they seem to be excelling even themselves. (I need a few deep breaths to calm the anger when just reading of the trials of people such as Ctrl-Alt-Del).

On a lighter note, for those of my fellow email changers who have an additional task of rummaging round the place for scattered website info, there may be an upside to take the edge off the pain.

Between updating websites I'm still compiling my list of websites we use. We have a lot of files and piles of paper in our house, most of them long overdue for a spring clean, and nearly all containing names of additional sites we use. What's more, clearing the spaces to carry out a series of home improvements has shuffled them like a pack of cards and dealt them all over the house.

They all needed flicking through for websites, and while doing that I find it takes hardly any more time to also discard the redundant stuff, trying URLs if in any doubt re usefulness (or existence even, as the websites date back to 2000!). Having done that with each file/heap in turn, it's just as quick to put it in the right place as back in a wrong one (reuniting connected ones at the same time).

Though I haven't been through all the files yet, already the bits of paper here are noticeably reduced, enabling most files to be slimmer or combined with another, and some emptied. It's great to see the fairly minimalist lines of our interior reappearing, and meanwhile the other types of info we've needed are fast becoming easy to find. (The time saved by that has already offset quite a lot spent on this email change).

When reorganising our stuff I usually get it all in roughly the right places first, and then work down to the small stuff. But that's quite difficult once there's no more free space to park anything in, and doing the opposite is getting the results. And for the first time we'll have a comprehensive list of websites for reference and updating, to sort into subjects once this rush is over. Especially as websites increasingly have names that could mean anything, so we have trouble remembering where we bought something last time/renewed our drivers licences etc. (eir' would be another one if familiarity hadn't been forced on us!).

greasepalm

No idea how long it took on 2 accounts with 1 email in each,we store some amount of crap now deleted.

adrian92

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Why would your bank even have your email address? Totally undermines the idea of "we will never email you asking for your PIN" or whatever. All communication with you should be through their secure online portal, even "we have a notification for you" as this is phishing central.

I use online banking, my bank don't have my email address and there is no ability to add it to my online banking.

Excellent point.

I have given my email to my bank.

I should have asked the bank why they wish to have my email?

Perhaps the same has happened to others or I am stupid?

rogue-entity

Marlow wrote: »

People are literally driving consume of internet and internet speeds up because they do not educate themselves instead of using it efficiently. That means more cost to providers and inflated infrastructure. The result: it'll all collapse like the finance market eventually and we'll end up with US prices.

Absolute rubbish to suggest folks are "using the internet inefficiently" if they try to send file attachments larger than 18MB and correlate that with the high prices charged by US ISPs, borderline conspiracy theorist nonsense.

Marlow wrote: »

Do you know, what Internet costs in the US ? Mate of mine in Pensylvania can choose between FTTH and Cable Internet. FTTH costs him 250 USD/month. Cable 180 USD/month. Imagine paying that here.

Costs are similar to the prices charged in Canada too, broadly speaking it is due to the market being dominated by oligopolies.

Comcast (for example) doesn't compete against Time Warner, Spectrum, Bright House etc as their networks don't overlap; their only competitors are the 'baby bells' and independent telephone companies.

For a long time, the only provider doing direct FTTH was Verizon in some markets, when Google entered the market in some cities, the existing providers frustrated or blocked rollout efforts every which way. Some municipalities, for example, Chattanooga in Tennessee with it's locally operated electrical grid, rolled out their own fibre but were blocked from extending that network as a result of lobbying by the incumbent cable and telecom operators who, simply, don't want competition.

Boozybooze wrote: »

The reason the internet is so expensive in the U.S is because of the size of the country and how widly distributed the population is and basically everyone can get a good internet connection.

Unfortunately this isn't even remotely true either, even in residential suburbs you can't always get a good internet connection, it's not all that different to the UK or Germany in that respect. You do have your share of 'not-spots' and poorly served areas.

In Rural (North) America you're not any better off than in the middle of rural Ireland. You'll have a landline and you'll have dial-up or you'll be using satellite internet.

Marlow wrote: »

Also cable operators over there don't have the Eurodocsis standard, so they can not even offer anywhere near the speeds you get here.

You're partially correct but EuroDOCSIS is DOCSIS modulo channel bandwidth. The data channels had to coexist with Analogue TV so for the same number of channels providers here could offer faster downstream speeds.

DOCSIS 3.1 eliminates the distinction and DOCSIS 4 ups the ante considerably.


To the topic at hand, I wonder if the move to charge would coincide with outsourcing the email operation entirely to, for example, Google and the fee is just recovering the per-user fees involved.