Xtra domain-name customers have lost their cellphone email service in the wake of Xtra’s new Yahoo alliance and have no idea when it will resume.
IT consultant Terry Friel says the cellphone email service costs an additional $15 a month in fees. He also took an optional extra service to provide email for other family members, at $2 each a month.
“There were myriad emails when the Yahoo Bubble service came in telling customers to change their settings, but at no stage did Xtra advise that the cellphone email service had ended. I wasn’t getting emails, so I went into a Telecom shop to check on the settings and it wasn’t till then I found the service had ended.”
The Xtra WAP email service ended last August, when Telecom joined forces with Yahoo. Users can only access their email now if they have a PDA.
In an exchange of emails, Xtra told Friel that when the merger took place with Yahoo certain portals became obsolete.
“The WAP email portal was for Xtra customers and it directed queries to a local, New Zealand-based mail server, and this included Office Mail (domain name email) users,” Xtra wrote.
“This is currently the situation. However, we are working on a new system and packages for our domain-name customers and we hope to release more information about this throughout the year. At present . . . you can still access email via an email client on your PDA.”
In another email, Xtra acknowledges how inconvenient this must be. “Unfortunately, there is no service available for Office Mail.”
The Xtra website says customers will have to register with Yahoo Bubble to get access to the PDA email service.