Telstra today announced that it is switching its email infrastructure for customers to using Microsoft’s Windows Live email service. That change affects 4.2 million inboxes, but for most people, it won’t make a massive difference. Here’s what you need to know.
Firstly, the process is going to take a while. Telstra officials say the switch will happen “during 2012″. New customers will go straight onto the Windows Live system; other customers will be sent a mail when the switchover happens to their account.
Secondly, it’s worth emphasising out that customer email addresses won’t change; you’ll still have a @bigpond.com or @telstra.com address, and won’t be moved to an @hotmail.com or @live.com address. If you’re using a standalone mail client (such as Outlook or Mail.app), the ingoing and outgoing mail settings remain largely the same. The most obvious settings change will be if you currently have a password that is less than eight characters long, since Windows Live enforces that as a requirement. Mobile phones also have slightly different settings, all listed on the Telstra site.
While Hotmail (which is what Windows Live Mail is built on) has a reputation as the email service no-one uses, it actually stacked up pretty well when we compared it to Gmail. Certainly if you’ve been using Telstra’s web-based client, the new version will be a big improvement. And don’t panic — despite the name of the service, it will work with any browser or computer, not just Windows systems.
au, bigpond, telstra, email, microsoft
Greg
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 1:29 PMNobody uses it, even though it has over 10 million more accounts than Gmail
TSH
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 1:32 PMHotmail 4lyf, yo!
I’m constantly bemused with people’s preference for Gmail. It was better for a brief period when it offered more storage, but apart from that has never had an edge. Google’s other services are great (Reader, in particular, is still my preferred RSS feed tool); but nothing special compared to comparable offerings from Microsoft.
Tim
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 1:46 PMIt’s the whopping great ads in Hotmail that give Gmail the comparative edge. That and Gmail’s conversation view… Oh, and the fact that Gmail syncs with whatever email client you like. Actually, Hotmail kind of sucks!
Stewart Walker
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 2:04 PMAnd the whopping big ads in GMail? yeah they don’t exist do they…
simo
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 2:55 PMyou forgot to mention the difference in speed.
simo
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 2:58 PMand priority inbox
traveler
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 1:53 PMDoes this mean that Bigpond customers will finally have Push email?
Kendal
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 2:48 PMI use ymail, just to be difficult.
Stove
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 3:05 PMI spent a while just last weekend cobbling together a way to make bigpond email sync between desktop, ipad, and android for some clients.
It should make things easier for me long term, and I wont need to convince anybody to jump ship from bigpond if they want a better email solution. Everybody wins.
Liam
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 4:29 PMWhile the fan boys keep blurting crap from their mouths. I start with this potentially means I don’t need to pay for an SMTP service to get all my mail folders. As well as increased space to store my data. I just wish hotmail gave me the option to turn off the junk mail filter!
b8 two
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 8:44 AMSMTP is for sending email, not receiving. It is used with Pop or IMAP to receive mail.
Ger
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 5:09 PMHotmail and Live are now fully active sync. Woks exactly the same as having a corporate Exchange account. Full email, contact and calendar push sync. There is nothing but benefit here for Bigpond customers.
Dood5
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 5:15 PMGood riddance bigpond webmail. I sometimes have need for this at work. I have never been able to figure out how the biggest telcomm in Australia could possibly have the most, buggiest annoying web based email ever. It hangs constantly and every second request to (even to open an email) is met with internal server error..good riddance!!
Prometheus
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 7:00 PMGet over it, both GMail and Hotmail are great in their own ways. Hell, I use both to get the best of both worlds.
Nat
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 10:02 PMFor me, Windows Live/Hotmail servers have always been so much slower than Gmail, Yahoo, Zoho and others that I have used.
Telstra will need to do force Microsoft to do something about server response times if they want to keep my business.
Pedro
Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 11:43 AMUpdate – fresh from Bigpond website http://go.bigpond.com/help/email/?ref=Net-Head-Help-Email#myinbox , highlighted in red:
__________________________________________________________
Alert!
A small number of customers with the Windows Live platform have experienced problems receiving or sending emails using an email client (eg. Outlook).
We recommend that customers access their email using Web Mail until this problem is fixed.
If you continue to experience issues please call BigPond Technical Support on 13 3933 or Mobile support on 13 2200.
We are working to fix the problem. BigPond will update this Alert once the problem is resolved. We thank you for your patience and apologise for the inconvenience caused.
___________________________________________________________
Bigpond/Telstra have absolutely stuffed this exercise.
Nathan
Monday, May 7, 2012 at 6:45 PMI have had a bigpond email for years, (3 addresses) recently my account was converted to “live” and I haven’t been able to download my mail with windows mail, windows live or my iPhone/iPad..
I even let bigpond remotely check my settings for over an hour… Still no luck .
The only saving grace is I can now at least use web mail. ( which doesn’t help saving emails in specific folders for my upcoming divorce).
Honestly, I have had a gut full… I didn’t ask for any conversion , I’m not pc savvy and it just annoys the crap out of me :/
The problem is obviously bigponds end… Wonder if it will ever get fixed…
John
Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 10:43 PMI just joined Bigpond and have not used windows live yet to send or recieve any emails (I use another service ).
Only to find each week since joining Bigpond I have recieved several spam emails interesting since I never subscribed to any, I previosly used live and closed that account becase of the constant spamming now it seems it continues with bigpond I will never use this account it’s crap and open to all spammers.