National communications provider pulls plug on email

[Tubetec]

Irelands biggest telecoms company is pulling the plug on its email service unless users pay for the priveledge from now on , Eir formerly Eircom and previous to that Post and Telecom  Eireann, the state owned and run service . The Eircom debacle was one of the biggest daylight robbery scams ever in the history of the state  , where the semi state company offered shares at a totally unrealistic value to a nation of retiree's with money to burn , then they bombed into the ground , the company was able to recoup the stocks at a fraction of its real value ,  the company simply shut down and reopened as Eir ,ditching the bad debt on the new B share holders, they robbed billions from many hardworking people who invested  . All the assets were tangible, infrastructure , the entire wired phone network in the country as well as a share in the mobile sector  . So now despite charging you for the rental of a phone line and being the broadband provider ,a seperate charge for email service  per person applies , 5.99 a month , on top of the already 70 odd ,

So its pay up to state sponsored racketeering , so the wires can be fixed up after a month of rain and wind,
or get off the network , it doesnt pay them to maintain the old  rural overground  wire network  so they want to dump as many as they can  off it ,once its shut down its like the railways ,it never comes back . Your old you live in a rural area without mobile phone coverage , kiss your ass goodbye in an emergency.Thank you for being a customer of the government of Ireland    (   

 

[boji]

So, are there laws in place that don't allow competition with your state-run isp or is it that there's no competition to be had? 
What are the rules regarding private P2P distribution?

In 'murica it's getting mighty cheap to send private internet around town using hop points. Sure, there's rules against subletting one's internet service when sourced from a single residential contract, but in many rural areas, I imagine those same ISP's have a monopoly grip on local communities, and would rather not have their anti-competition tactics showcased in court.

 

[JohnRoberts]

After listening to your almost daily trials and tribulations have you considered leaving the emerald isle or are you stuck there because of Brexit? (bad joke).

JR

 

[Tubetec]

There are multiple service providers here ,  but it all comes down EIR's wires , typically they screw long term customers and give the best deals to people who sign up under a new contract , the terms and conditions of which are constantly shape shifting to allow the companies involved monetize your data more and more effectively ,while any liabilities that crop up they seek to indemnify themselves from.

The point Id like to make about the internet service providers is they should have been paying  all along for our content. Instead it was set up so the end user effectively robs content and the service provider facillitates it. In any normal business  if you were facilitating people to commit crime  you would be shut down or go to jail . The big players in IT demanded light touch regulation and were allowed to have everything their own way ,data scraping/ advertising is the real cash cow behind it all.

I think a lot of the stuff Ive mentioned happens all over ,so hot swapping location doesnt make much odds.
Ive taken a stand over our governments use of biometric data and Im seeing my human rights undermined on several levels because of it . Passport and drivers license , which contain a biometrically processed image arent manditory ,yet now I'm told in order to use of banking I must present either of these forms of  ID to the credit institution who then send a copy to the Revenue Commisioners (Tax Authority) .
Its seems that a sizeable proportion of the population have unwittingly traded out data protection and privacy by signing up to the likes of FB . The attitude coming from government departments is well ,most have already signed up to big data , voluenteer your data to us ,so we can take our cut of the advertising pie or we shut you down .  Thats called the use of coercive force.

You never run from a bully ,it only sparks the instinct to give chase.
I'm as well fighting against injustice on home soil  as anywhere else. 

 

[cyrano]

Seriously, does anybody still use smtp servers from their own ISP these days?

I mean, it was a bad idea 20 years ago, but today, with hundreds of free or very affordable specialised offers from 3rd parties it seems like a logical step for ay ISP.

Our local telco had it's mail servers on the "skynet.be" domain. These are still present for existing, longtime customers, but I know they'd pay a lot for an elegant way out. No new email addresses have been handed out for over a decade.

 

[iampoor1]

Why arnt you using gmail or any of the other bazillion free webmail services?

Maybe they haave decided to start charging because they dont want to continue providing the service? Your post makes it sound like some sort of deep state conspiracy, where it just sounds like its not profitable or a service they want to offer anymore...charging people for it is the esasy way out! heh

 

[Tubetec]

What I use was free all along before they moved the goal posts .
Yeah definately looks like they want to kill the email section of their business,
I must migrate my account to a new provider asap.
Gmail ,Id prefer not to touch  , that belongs to  the biggest aggregator of personal data on the planet 

 

[rob_gould]

Have a look at proton mail.

 

[Tubetec]

Thanks Rob .

I just had a quick look so far , I'm impressed I have to say .

Set up is very simple by the looks , 

I'll have a quick run through of the terms and conditions before clicking ok in any case.

Im just wondering about  how to back up my old account  in such a way that its viewable and emails/attachments etc are saved
seperate from any email account , then theres the migration itself , any advice from people in the know would be greatly appreciated , Im completey new to this end of computer housekeeping .

 

[cyrano]

Use Thunderbird to download your mail via pop protocol. Next, export mail either to mbox format (one big file) or individual text files.

 

[PRR]

> Have a look at proton mail.

My brother switched last week. My quick impression:

Real mail geeks, not the bozos at Yahoo (who run former AT&T mail and many others) or gMail (good at indexing mail but many irritations never get fixed). I clung to an academic mailhost for 33 years because NO commercial mail host does it as good as (the better) academic computing folks.

MUCH less storage than I have been using for years. I remember 100MB... back in 1999. I'm currently using 2,400MB (and yes I do go back into the old messages often enough). PMfree is 500MB. OK, I guess 5,000MB of PM is only $50/year.

Can't use ThunderBird on PC. WebMail(!!), Apps for Android or iOS. I understand that Proton must think TBird and similar desktop clients are leaky holes. And while I trust Proton 99%, it seems clear that when the operation goes broke (or is blocked) I can never even see those emails again because they are "so secure".

 

[cyrano]

Of course you can use Thunderbird on Windows:

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/

Just like Mac or Linux.  Unless you're running a very, very old 32 bit OS.

 

[rob_gould]

I think PRR means that you can't use a mail client like thunderbird with proton mail.

I have the free account - 500mb.  I periodically prune, and don't tend to receive a lot of stuff with big attachments, so I haven't needed to pay for more email storage space yet. 

But when I do, I'll be keeping in mind the old adage 'when you're getting something for free on the internet, you are the product being bought and sold'.

Suddenly a proton mail subscription doesn't seem so expensive compared to 'free' storage from Gmail etc.

 

[cyrano]

Proton is webmail or an app for iOS/Android. It also does pop/imap via the bridge application:

https://protonmail.com/bridge/

So you can use it with Thunderbird. 

I've been using it from the beginning. By far the most reliable/secure mail solution out there. I also use a number of other email providers, usually webmail, except when I need to archive.

 

[PRR]

> pop/imap via the bridge application:

OK. Not well advertised. Some logical limits.

 

[volker]

The DIY internet of the 90s really turned into a place to consume services by big corporations  ???.

Getting your own web domain is so cheap and easy these days. Most will come with preconfigured mail included. Or you set up your own mail server, no rocket surgery either. Family members or friends can be included, cost becomes zero. You gain freedom of restrictions and get away from a host that will analyze your (meta) data. Gmail isn't "free", in any sense of the word.

 

[Tubetec]

Thank you all for your contributions ,

I probably dont need to migrate everything over to the new service , just having my addresses  emails and attached documents stored locally  is fine , I can add addresses to the new service as needed ,and keep everything nice and trim .

There does seem to be many of an older generation especially signed up to email with the national service provider here years back that have no clue what to do next,and stand the risk of loosing contact with family & friends over it  , where the younger sheeple convinced themselves Gmail was best , now their life is an open book  to scrape marketeering forever  ;D

 

[cyrano]

By far the biggest inconvenience is notifying all your contacts that you have a new email address...