XtraMail branches out

By PETER GRIFFIN

Internet service provider Xtra will this week revamp its popular web-based email service XtraMail as it prepares to launch a range of next-generation features, the first of which will be email to SMS text alerts.

The Telecom-owned ISP will introduce the email-to-text service this month for Xtra users, but plans to make the service available to Vodafone 021 customers later.

All Telecom customers equipped with an 027 WAP (wireless application protocol) mobile and an XtraMail account will be able to receive the text alerts, which display the first 150characters of an email sent to the Xtraaccount. Customers will be charged a maximum of 20c, the standard price of a text message, for each email forwarded.

Through the XtraMail, web-page users will be able to nominate important incoming email addresses, deciding which are to be forwarded to their phone in the form of a text message.

Xtra customers can now access their Xtra email via WAP over the CDMA network. Xtra spokesman Matt Bostwick said 12,000 customers now did so. The XtraMail site received 80,000 unique visitors a week, he added.

Up for a new look will be XtraMail's most popular features - vacation message set-up, email signatures, email searches and managing mail forwarding. Each option will now have a direct link from XtraMail's inbox page.

Xtra is yet to reveal what other next-generation features will be added to the portal.

Bostwick said last year's $7 million upgrade of the Xtra mail servers had cleared the way for mobile and remote management features.

Latest research from Xtra shows 56 per cent of its users are male, with the largest single group of users aged 35 to 49.