Xtra email blockage upsets mobile users

By PETER GRIFFIN

A breakdown in talks between Vodafone and Telecom last year led to handheld computer and smartphone users being unable to access Xtra email accounts over the Vodafone mobile network.

Just before Christmas, Xtra moved to block "pop3" and "smtp" mail account access to users sending and receiving emails over the networks of rival internet providers and Vodafone.

Now customers of Xtra, the country's largest internet provider, have no choice but to access their email through a web browser if they are using the internet through a rival provider. Doing so through mobile devices is slow and expensive.

The change has upset web surfers and mobile users who have invested in expensive phone/handheld packages armed with "pocket" versions of mail programs Eudora and Outlook Express so they can check email on the move.

An Australia-based customer of Xtra told the Herald that no longer being able to simply download messages straight into Outlook Express was very inconvenient.

Xtra's consumer general manager, Rod Snodgrass, said Xtra had offered Vodafone a third-party agreement similar to that it had with Telecom and Sky TV - which allows subscribers to access their Xtra email through Sky decoders on their TV screens. But no deal had been struck.

"We were a bit baffled by [Vodafone's response]," said Snodgrass.

"What they were doing with our customers was invisible, we wanted to formalise the relationship."

Vodafone's content partnering manager, Mac Jones, would not go into details of the proposed agreement but said it "was not commercially viable" for Vodafone.

"If I'd signed it, I'd have been giving away my first-born child," he said.

Jones said the blockage affected people "with pretty fancy phones" and those accessing email over the data network from handheld computers and laptops. It was a small userbase, but one that mobile operators are basing their future business models around as more sophisticated phones hit the market.

"It would have made more sense for them to block access but tell customers that for an extra monthly fee they could have access," said Jones.

TelstraClear's internet provider, Clearnet, blocked email access from rival platforms some time ago, but will grant customers access for a monthly fee of around $7. Xtra has made no similar move.

Xtra estimates the email blocking affects 2 per cent of its subscriber base.

Jones said the move had made Vodafone focus more on its relationship with TelstraClear and speed up plans to upgrade its own mail platform. Vodafone currently offers free webmail accounts to its 1.2 million customers, but will look to offer pop3 and smtp capabilities.

Jones admitted that other countries had already gone down the mail-blocking path to protect their customer bases but said the move could alienate Xtra's travelling users.

"If you're in London dialling in through a local internet provider to get to your Xtra email it would have killed that access."

Snodgrass said Vodafone's plans to offer more internet services may have scuttled the agreement.

"I think they've aspirations to become an internet provider themselves, maybe that's what was behind it."