Virgin Media switches to Google Mail

Posted on 15 Apr 2009 at 12:23

Virgin Media, the UK's biggest ISP, is transferring its email service to Google Mail to provide a consistent set of features to all of its customers. The company will use Google Partner Edition Apps so that its @virginmedia.com email addresses will hosted and managed by Google.

The move to Google Mail has come after Virgin Media decided to migrate its three previous email platforms, which it inherited from the merger of NTL, Telewest and Virgin.net. Some customers have reported a lack of email for several days.

The ISP has said that users will also get the same 7GB of storage, web interface and IMAP and POP3 - for desktop client access - that existing Google Mail users get. However, their email will not be scanned by Google to provide contextual adverts. Instead, Virgin Media will serve its own non-contextual adverts.

The new email service will be piloted by the first 20,000 customers to sign up, with a full launch to all new customers shortly after. Existing customers will then be migrated, with the option to keep their existing @blueyonder.co.uk, @ntlworld.com or @virgin.net email addresses, or they can sign up for a new @virginmedia.com address.

While the new email service is likely to be easier to use and more reliable than the existing one, you're not getting anything extra, bar non-contextual adverts. A free Google Mail account has the same benefits as Virgin Media's service, and you won't have to change your email address if you decide to change your ISP. Even better, if you have your own domain name, you can sign up for a free Google Apps account, so that you can get a Google Mail account for your own @yourdomain email.

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota

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