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Verizon has announced it is getting out of the e-mail business, and will be asking millions of its DSL and FiOS customers to find a new home for their email accounts.
“We have decided to close down our email business,” the company wrote in its e-mail FAQ. “Over the years we’ve realized that there are more capable email platforms out there. As a result, we’ve made a decision to get out of the email business, which will allow us to focus our energies in providing you with the best in Internet and TV experiences.”
Customers who take no action to move their e-mail account to a new provider will find their account eventually deactivated and 180 days after that it will be deleted, resulting in losing contacts, calendar(s) and any stored email. Verizon claims it needs to delete your account to “reduce our server storage needs and electrical consumption.”
Customers will be able to keep their existing verizon.net addresses, but will have to change their email provider to AOL Mail. If they don’t make the switch, those email addresses will eventually be deleted.
Stop the Cap! has long advised readers not to depend on email addresses provided by ISPs like Verizon because it makes switching providers more complicated and difficult. If you switch, you will lose your existing email address(es) and have to notify everyone of the change. Instead, we recommend using independent email services like Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo email. Those email accounts are unaffected if you change providers. You can also optimize your communication with analytics by using email software.
Verizon is recommending customers move to AOL Mail because of an enhanced set of features, including the ability to verify email and keep your verizon.net email address:
- Keep current verizon.net email address
- Much more storage space for your email
- Advanced spam filters
- Virus protection
- Email attachments up to 25MB
- Send texts and instant messages right from your inbox
- Easily manage your email anywhere with the highly rated AOL app
Customers can also choose to get an aol.com email address if they want to be nostalgic.
Verizon will notify customers about impending deadlines to give customers a chance to adjust to the change.
Be aware Verizon tells customers the migration is likely to take several hours, so you might want to take care of it when you are least likely to receive important messages you don’t want to miss.
Makes sense to roll VZ email into AOL, given that VZ owns ’em. And at least they’re rolling the accounts to AOL rather than Yahoo. My guess is that verizon.net email servers haven’t been upgraded in years, so they’re using less efficient chips and storage than AOL’s stuff, which is probably running on AWS by now (so the cost of a few email accounts is marginal, and can be offset by advertising, just like any other free AOL email account). All of that said, I’ve had a GMail account since 2004, with the rest of the family following years later.… Read more »
Ooooh, Verizon owns AOL? Yeah, that makes total sense to just use that then. Makes sense anyway probably, but especially if they already own a better/real email service! “Stop the Cap! has long advised readers not to depend on email addresses provided by ISPs like Verizon because it makes switching providers more complicated and difficult. If you switch, you will lose your existing email address(es) and have to notify everyone of the change. Instead, we recommend using independent email services like Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo email. Those email accounts are unaffected if you change providers.” This is FANTASTIC advice.… Read more »