iiNet users losing free email access

Australian internet service provider (ISP) and telecoms provider iiNet Limited (aka TPG, Internode and Westnet) is getting out of the email business.

Instead of an outright shutdown, the core iiNet email services are being transitioned to "The Messaging Company" and after a possible period of free service (through September 15, 2024?), users will have to pay to maintain that email service.

Multiple sources report that users are upset; for among other reasons, email aliases will not be transferred to the new email service and will be lost.

Senders, you're likely to see an increase in bounces at the iiNet domains as users abandon ship; surely not all of them will pay to transition to the new service, and even for those that do, they may lose some email aliases. You might want to reach out to iiNet users as soon as possible and offer them the ability to register an alternate email address.

Should you consider these email domains to be dead or dying? Probably not; some user accounts are likely to continue on.

iiNet has a number of domains, and it's not clear to me exactly which ones are affected. But I suspect that it's going to affect all domains hosted by asav.iinet.net.au:

• aapt.net.au
• adam.com.au
• echidna.id.au
• ihug.com.au
• ii.net
• iinet.com.au
• iinet.net
• iinet.net.au
• it.net.au
• iweb.net.au
• netc.net.au
• netspace.net.au
• nettrek.com.au
• nw.com.au
• ozemail.com.au
• powerup.com.au
• senet.com.au
• tig.com.au
• upnaway.com
• wantree.com.au
• westnet.com.au
• wn.com.au

iiNet also hosts paid email service for various custom client domains; it is unclear to me if this is transitioning away, but one assumes that these domains will see little change from a sender's perspective, regardless of what happens. If somebody's paying for email service for a given domain today, they're probably going to keep paying for it tomorrow.