Many years ago I had an email account which ended with @paradise.net.nz. Overseas friends thought it was cool that someone living in NZ lived in “paradise”. Paradise was our internet provider at the time (subsequently bought by Clear, who in turn were bought by Vodafone). At some point I moved and changed providers — and lost the email.
If I’d hung onto it — I would be in the position of losing the email on 30 November 2017 because Vodafone has just announced that it will no longer support email.
The complete list of email addresses affected are:
- clear.net.nz
- es.co.nz
- ihug.co.nz
- paradise.net.nz
- pcconnect.co.nz
- quik.co.nz
- vodafone.co.nz
- vodafone.net.nz
- wave.co.nz
Tempting though it maybe — doing nothing is not an option if you are using any of the above email addresses — the service will stop on 30 November.
Steps to change your email address
- Pick your new email provider.
- Tell everyone in your address book.
- Import your existing emails and addresses to your new email.
- Monitor your old email occasionally to see if anything relevant has come through — change the email on that service if you want to.
- Where you’ve used email as your login for third party accounts e.g. amazon.com — you will need to change that email too. Although the old login will continue to work, if anything goes wrong with the account you’ll probably be locked out because you won’t be able to respond to the email.
Vodafone is saying they will forward your existing email to your new account. Don’t just say yes to this. The reason that Vodafone is shutting down email is because they are making no money from providing the service. So they are going to be spending no money managing spam.
Alternative email address options for Vodafone customers
gmail.com
Pros: Arguably the best online email client on the planet. Excellent spam filtering. Useful and flexible interface. Useful filtering for subscriptions and social media notifications so they don’t clutter up your inbox. Gmail makes Google money (see below), so it’s likely to be around for a long time. Integrates nicely with other free stuff like online calendars.
Cons: Nothing in life is free. Gmail is free because of the ads (there is a paid option to remove them). Google will scan your emails’ content to display ads.
outlook.com (or co.nz)
Pros: If you have a Windows10 computer you may already have an outlook address. Outlook is owned by Microsoft and has been around for years.
Cons: Microsoft as a company is in some trouble. It’s a lot bigger than Vodafone — but it’s entirely plausible that they may stop offering email too. Their spam control isn’t that good either.
icloud.com, me.com, mac.com
Pros: If you are part of the Mac ecosystem (laptop, desktop, ipod or iphone) — you may already have at least one of these email addresses.
Cons: The Mail app is not fantastic. Not really an option for Windows users.
Other free email: yahoo, hotmail etc
Pros: They’re not Google?
Cons: Gmail is the best out there and has been for years — if you are happy to swap a small amount of privacy for a robust free email, use gmail.
Your own Domain email
If you own a domain name e.g. dearjohn.nz, diypublishing.co.nz, — then you can have email addresses. Many. The costs involved are modest:
We can organise your domain name for $30 per year.
Email only hosting costs $50 per year.
If you already have a website hosted with us at Dear John, then you have 5 free email accounts.