Vodafone are closing their domain registration, email, web and domain name hosting

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Spong

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#243123 27-Nov-2018 22:19

One of my clients received an email from Vodafone today stating the following (see below). They suggest taking your business elsewhere, e.g. Freeparking.

I guess the writing was on the wall after the disgraceful way they dumped all of their private customer email accounts a while back, rather than investing in modern technology. What a nice Christmas present for those who've been using their services for many years.

Hi there,

Important: on 28 February 2019, we’ll be closing our web and email hosting services.
This includes:

• Domain Name Registration
• Email Hosting
• Web Hosting
• Domain Name Hosting (DNS Hosting)

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

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#2135535 27-Nov-2018 22:24

ISPs shouldn't be in the business of providing email and/or hosting. Those days are long gone and customers using those services should have got off them ages ago since the writing was on the wall like 5+ years ago.

Hammerer

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#2135536 27-Nov-2018 22:26

I like that they've been decisive. Hopefully it helps them focus on the other services I uses. I also like that they are "forcing" users to use better products and services. Nowadays there are so many better options even if we less some convenience and face some higher costs.

I only really dislike that they provide little hand-holding to ease the transition.

Goosey

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#2135583 28-Nov-2018 07:19

I read elsewhere on here that someone was asking if VF were also going to shut off email forwarding. Does anyone know if this is true?

(even after migrating off ISP email since about 2-3 years....theres always times when you discover somone or somthing is using the old ISP email.....still)....

xpd

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#2135586 28-Nov-2018 07:28

One of my personal clients got email telling them to shift by 30th November! Original email was same as yours, then this one turned up........

Hello,

We wanted to remind you that in just one week, on 30 November 2018, we’ll be closing our web hosting services for personal homepages.

What you need to do

You currently have a homepage set up at: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~(user)

Note it says personal homepages - even though their domain etc is held at that location. Think theres two different systems, one for old IHUG homepages, personal or business, and Vodafones own system.....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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gehenna

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#2135660 28-Nov-2018 08:49

Ihug! Sheesh. So that was already an ancient service that Vodafone took on when they bought ihug nearly 13 years ago. The infrastructure and support overhead to keep these services running must have been costing a fortune with almost no benefit to Vodafone. Customers are super lucky they kept them around this long, and then didn't just turn them off and claim "old stuff broke, sorry".

solutionz

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#2135798 28-Nov-2018 10:13

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fhomepages.ihug.co.nz%2F~

About 16,300 results...

Probably not the best idea to have directory listings enabled as from a cursory view seems to be a fair amount if "private" info unwittingly exposed [password lists, databases, address books, security cam uploads etc].

gehenna

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#2135822 28-Nov-2018 11:10

Probably part of the constraint of running these sites on legacy systems, which justifies closing the service.

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Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

DarthKermit

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#2135839 28-Nov-2018 11:19

gehenna:

Ihug! Sheesh. So that was already an ancient service that Vodafone took on when they bought ihug nearly 13 years ago. The infrastructure and support overhead to keep these services running must have been costing a fortune with almost no benefit to Vodafone. Customers are super lucky they kept them around this long, and then didn't just turn them off and claim "old stuff broke, sorry".

No one forced Vodafone to go on such a shopping spree, buying up all these ISPs and then providing such terrible customer service.

Spong

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#2135845 28-Nov-2018 11:26

DarthKermit:

gehenna:

Ihug! Sheesh. So that was already an ancient service that Vodafone took on when they bought ihug nearly 13 years ago. The infrastructure and support overhead to keep these services running must have been costing a fortune with almost no benefit to Vodafone. Customers are super lucky they kept them around this long, and then didn't just turn them off and claim "old stuff broke, sorry".

No one forced Vodafone to go on such a shopping spree, buying up all these ISPs and then providing such terrible customer service.

Spark for example could have dumped all of their users email accounts when they parted ways with Yahoo, but no, they brought them back home and SMX have done a pretty good job for them since then. They also still host domains and corporate email, so I can't see how it's inevitable that an ISP, especially one as large as VF can't provide a good suite of services for their clients.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

gehenna

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#2135852 28-Nov-2018 11:37

It's clearly not the business Vodafone wants to be in. I still think they've done more than is reasonably expected to keep these services up and running for a decade. If they hadn't bought ihug and TelstraClear there's no way those companies would have lasted this long anyway, so these services would have died an untimely death years ago.

Zepanda66

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#2135854 28-Nov-2018 11:40

gehenna: ISPs shouldn't be in the business of providing email and/or hosting. Those days are long gone and customers using those services should have got off them ages ago since the writing was on the wall like 5+ years ago.

As long as it doesnt take too much to host then why not? A lot of older folks who are not as technical still use them. My mum still uses slingshots email service. Good luck trying to get her to sign up to gmail and move all her contacts over.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7315955530.png

gehenna

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#2135860 28-Nov-2018 11:44

Zepanda66:

As long as it doesnt take too much to host then why not?

That's the point, it does cost and there is little benefit to the ISP to do this other than engendering good will. It's not an ISP's problem that some folks aren't digitally savvy enough to move their services elsewhere. They're not charities.

kingjj

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#2136483 29-Nov-2018 10:32

My dad just moved his personal site off their personal hosting after being on there for the last 18+ years due to their closure tomorrow. He has religiously kept his site under 10mb even as he's updated and expanded it over the years. I've been trying to get him to move to one of my servers for years but he was happy there, "it just works". Considering this was the last thing keeping him with Vodafone I think he'll soon be jumping ship to another provider. No great loss to VF in the grand schemes but I imagine there'll be a small bit of churn as a result. Made sense to shut it down though, the days of ISP's having to provide value-added email and hosting are long gone, these days they really just need to focus on stability and support (both of which VF seem to be trying to improve...).