Virgin.net email and Virgin Cable Broadband

David.Pollock · 03-03-2008, 18:58

Is anyone else being threatened with losing their e-mail address unless they dial up to connect instead of accessing via cable?

I've had my email address since Virgin started email, and it is known to hundreds of people and I do not want to change it.

I've had broadband cable since Cable London installed it, and have for years received and sent email via the cable.

Now I get an email from Virginmedia.com saying that I must access email by dial-up or they will discontinue my account. Phone calls all day to various bits of the Virgin empire add up to everyone saying "It's the rule."

Of course Virgin dial-up gets no payment for email accessed via Virgin broadband. So no doubt they think it is clever to require dial-up connection. But all they require is dial-up at least once every 60 days. So even if I could make a phone connection without huge disruption of cabling etc here, I'd certainly connect only the minimum number of times. So: no great profit there - just a seriously disgruntled customer.

So cannot they modify the rule to allow their own customers, paying them the earth for not always reliable broadband, to use it to connect with their own email service? (Easy enough to verify that someone has a broadband account!)

Or else (as I suggested to various "Help"-lines) introduce a small charge to cover their email server costs? (Not - as someone seriously asked, £14.99 a amonth for another whole broadband service on dial-up!)

Does anyone know: who is the most junior Virgin manager who is in charge of both Virgin Cable and Virgin Dial-Up? I want to tackle him on the issue - but Virgin have effectively NO corporate information on any of their websites (I wonder why?)

BenMcr · 03-03-2008, 21:58

because althought virgin.net and virgin cable are owed by the same company. their billing and e-mail systems (at the moment) are completely seperate.

This should change later this year but at the moment the e-mail address is only valid on the service you use

so virgin.net is ADSL and dial-up.

ntlworld.com is ex-ntl cable broadband, ex-ntl dial-up and ntl:freedom ADSL (though this is being closed)

blueyonder.co.uk is ex-telewest cable broadband and dial-up (I think)

you can't currently transfer e-mail between them.

There is going to be a mail platform migration this year, after which all e-mail addresses will be held on a common system. then it won't matter

Richy99 · 03-03-2008, 22:02

dont forget that virgin.net and Virgin Media were two completely different and separate companies when you started your virgin.net account