Namesco provide some answers that I *do* believe

As you know, my multi-week on-line support enquiry with Namesco got me
nowhere, because every missive from me was dealt with by a different
person who didn't seem able to read what had gone on before, and gave
answers that contradicted what previous people had said.

So this time I telephoned them (0345 363 3633, option 1) and spoke to
someone who (a) agreed that some of the responses his colleagues had
given were clearly incorrect, and more importantly (b) claimed to have a
fairly good understanding of how the migrations were supposed to work --
and actually appeared to do so! (When there was something he wasn't
absolutely sure about, he went off to check with his team leader, which
was another good sign.)

This is the gist of what he told me; and unlike before, I actually find
this version credible. It may yet turn out to be wrong, in which case
There Will Be Trouble, but I'm a lot more confident than I've felt at
any point since Richard_CC's fateful post over six weeks ago.

For Demon below, read Demon/Vodafone.

* The migration of e-mail for hostname.dcu addresses is a notional
concept only: the DNS entries remain unchanged, hosted on Demon's
nameservers, with MX records of mx*.demon.co.uk, which still resolve
to intY's servers as before. The only change is to Demon's internal
records: basically whether the nominal e-mail "provider" for
hostname.dcu is Demon (via intY) or Namesco (via intY). Nothing
changes at all at intY's end: your mail is on the same servers, you
use the same admin portal, etc.

* Customers whose Demon/Vodafone accounts didn't provide connectivity
(pure domain/web hosting and Dial Loyalty) had, or should have had,
both their web sites and their e-mail provision migrated to Namesco;
this is presumably why former DL customers like Roy Brown are now
getting invoices from Namesco for "intY Dial Email" and,
theoretically, no further invoices from Demon.

* Customers whose accounts include connectivity (broadband *and*
dialup) had their web sites migrated to Namesco, but Demon remain
their nominal e-mail providers as well as connectivity providers.
They have to pay Demon for a reduced service that includes e-mail but
not web space, *and* Namesco for the migrated web hosting.

* Namesco can request Demon to assign the nominal e-mail provision to
them, at which point -- assuming you don't want the connectivity any
more -- you can cancel your Demon subscription and your host.dcu mail
and web will continue to function exactly as before. Demon will
continue to provide the DNS records even though you're no longer a
customer of theirs.

* Namesco genuinely have no idea what Demon mean when they talk of only
being able to use hostname.dcu addresses for "around two more years",
but he seemed to think my suggestion of that being the point where
they expunge all the ex-customer DNS records was quite plausible.

* If I wanted to keep both my web space and e-mail for ashes.dcu, and
was no longer interested in keeping my connectivity with Demon, they
could ask Demon to migrate the nominal e-mail provision to Namesco,
and once that was done, I could cancel my account with Demon. Their
Basic Hosting (intY) package, at £4.99/month + VAT, would cover
everything.

* I observed that their Starter Hosting package is currently on offer
at £3.99/month + VAT (if you take it out for a year), which is
cheaper than Basic Hosting (intY), and asked whether it would be
possible to move my e-mail provision from Demon to Namesco *and* move
on to this package, which would (a) cost less and (b) give me decent
web hosting instead of the paltry 25 MB, no databases etc. provided
by the Basic Hosting (intY) package.

The initial answer was yes, but since this was a new package being
taken out from scratch, I might have to re-upload my web site. I
pointed out that this was silly, since it was already on their
servers and it should be trivial for them to copy the files across;
he agreed and went to check with his supervisor, and came back a few
minutes later saying that it could indeed be done as I suggested.

I also asked, since Starter Hosting comes with proper mailboxes,
how/whether this would fit in with the ex-Demon intY service; he said
they could run in parallel, and the intY system would be provided
instead of the normal mail features of the Starter Hosting package.

* So, having received assurances that this really would work, and my
ashes.dcu e-mail wouldn't be cut off or anything, I went for it: he
removed the Basic Hosting (intY) package from my control panel, and I
paid the £47.92 + VAT for a year's worth of Starter Hosting to
replace it; my control panel now says "Starter Hosting (Limitless)
for ashes.dcu". He logged a request with their 3rd line support for
the web pages to be copied across to my new package, which should
happen within 24 hours, and I will be notified when it has been done.
Namesco will liaise with Demon to get my e-mail "migrated" to them,
and once all this was done and working, I can cancel my Demon
subscription and continue purely as a Namesco customer.

Assuming this all works as promised, I can't wait; but I think I'll
leave it as is for a month or so, until after the 1 June deadline, just
to be sure.

The annoying thing is that I've recently had to pay my next annual SDU
subscription (I had reached the end of the 30-day invoice terms); the
next "fun" thing will be trying to get Demon to repay the unused months
when I cancel. I suspect they will try to stiff me as one last show of
appreciation for 22 years of loyal custom, but frankly I don't really
care all that much if it enables me to be free of the incompetent, lying
charlatans that the once-peerless Demon have turned into since their
acquisition by Vodafone.

This does mean I won't get to find out whether it would have all just
continued to work if I had paid both Demon and Namesco for SDU and web
hosting respectively -- sorry! But based on what I was told this
morning, I'm fairly confident that it should Just Work (albeit with a
decreased service and/or higher monthly costs for many).

I'll let you know how it goes...

--
Simon Turner DoD #0461
si...@twoplaces.co.uk
Trust me -- I know what I'm doing! -- Sledge Hammer

On 08/05/2015 13:34, Simon Turner wrote:

Fascinating stuff, Simon. It does sound much more plausible than other
responses we've seen. Many thanks for taking the trouble to write it up.
> not web space,*and* Namesco for the migrated web hosting.

So I'm in this category. I even received confirmation of this from
Demon's point of view this morning following a Demon online support
enquiry I made yesterday. The relevant sentences say, "I have checked
your account and can see that we are currently billing you only for the
Demon Home Office 8000 broadband service. ...
As far as your email address hotair.dcu is concerned, we will be dealing
with the account and not Namesco".

The remaining concern I have, fuelled by earlier responses to me from
Namesco, is whether Namesco *also* think that my hotair.dcu email is
their responsibility. It's time for another phone call, sigh.

--
Tony

On Friday, in article <miidmv$k8i$1...@dont-email.me>
No problem; the more info we all have, the greater the chance of coming
out of this mess relatively unscathed.
Good; that sounds right.
Hmm. I suspect they were confused (there's a lot of it about!); but
since, in both cases, it's intY who actually deal with the mail, via MX
records hosted by Demon that resolve to their machines, I don't think
there's anything Namesco can do to muck it up. (Famous last words.)

I presume you're not intending to pay Namesco for anything? (I note
that www.hotair.dcu produces a Namesco placeholder page, implying you
don't have a web site.) If so, have you told them that?

On Fri, 08 May 2015 13:34:26 +0100 (BST), si...@twoplaces.co.uk (Simon
Turner) wrote:

snip [before and after] what appears to be an accurate and welcome
overview except for this section:
Although I have not seen a written version, it was my understanding
when I regraded 18 months or so ago, that the new contract did *not*
include web space. On that basis the web space that *has* in my case
been migrated to Namesco has been migrated in error; indeed,
Demon/Vodafone should have 'removed' it at the time I took up the new
contract. Consequently I a) do not expect/intend to pay Namesco
anything and b) nor do I expect to pay less to Demon/Vodafone for the
period of my current contract.

Of course, Demon/Vodafone broadband customers who have *not* taken up
a new contract since Demon/Vodafone ceased actively marketing web
space several years ago, may be in a different position.

Chris S

On Friday, in article
<51npkal9ut73g05nh...@4ax.com>
Ah yes, sorry; that bit should have been clearer. I was thinking of
those accounts that did come with web space (dialup and old broadband
accounts).
Indeed so; the error is, course, down to Demon/Vodafone.
Quite; as you say, since your contract doesn't include web space, your
arrangement with Demon/Vodafone should be entirely unaffected by this
migration fiasco.

You're not alone in finding that your should-have-been-deleted web site
actually continued to exist and was migrated; and there are some people
with web-less contracts who took advantage of the fact that their sites
continued to exist.

Have you had any contact from Namesco? Or are you waiting to see what
happens to your zombie web site come 1st June?
Just so. I'll do a follow-up to the original post to make that clear.

On Friday, in article
<20150508.12...@twoplaces.co.uk>
si...@twoplaces.co.uk "Simon Turner" wrote:

[...]
I should have said that this part only applies to people who had web
space with Demon; those without web space should be entirely unaffected,
and don't get a reduced service from Demon.

Of course, we know that at least some people who moved from older Demon
contracts that included web space to newer ones that didn't have found
that their old web sites, which should have been deleted, were actually
left in place and subsequently migrated to Namesco; they have the choice
of whether to pay Namesco to keep their reanimated web sites going, or
let them die for good this time. (Whether they know about their
reanimated web sites may be a different matter, given how many sites
were migrated to Namesco without Demon/Vodafone providing them with any
customer details for that site.)

I'm not so sure :( As per this bit of your summary ...
... it's also a change to Namesco's internal records in the latter case,
and presumably also to intY's (i.e. who's paying intY and therefore who
intY think is the responsible company for each dcu email account). In my
mind, there's still the possibility that, in all the confusion, Namesco
have told intY that they, Namesco, are now responsible for my hotair.dcu
email service, but Demon haven't realised this. Who knows what checks
are in place.
Correct, unless I find it's the only way to keep hotair.dcu emails
working for a while longer, in parallel with my new Fastmail account.
Correct, ever since I deleted all the files :)
No, not yet, that's part of the next discussion I need to have with them.

--
Tony

In message <20150508.12...@twoplaces.co.uk>, Simon Turner
Did you get his name?
Indeed. (Just hope his team leader had a clue!)
(Wot's an admin portal?)
Well, _according to Leif today_, I - emails and tiny website only - will
be getting no more debits from Demon.
Do they actually still provide dialup connectivity at all? (Has anyone
here actually dialled in in the last few months, and found a MoDem to
talk to?)
Hmm.
That's the worrying bit, to me: something provided free can, I fear, be
withdrawn any time, and - this is the particularly worrying bit - with
little or zero notice.
This chap sounds too helpful for his own good (hence my interest in his
name); I hope he doesn't get moved sideways once his bosses discover
that he's being so helpful.
By "proper mailboxes", do you mean something _other_ than the
anyt...@hostname.demon.co.uk sort of thing?
Definitely!
[]
Thanks.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Science fiction is escape into reality - Arthur C Clarke

[snip]
Keep saying I will contact Namesco but don't seem to get around to
doing it. I ought to as it should be easier to stop billing before it
happens in the first place rather than try to get a credit note issued
after the event.
I should call it a FUAQ (Frequently UnAnswered Questions). :-)
Probably an old Internet joke but I can't recall having heard it
before.

Chris

[..]
That is reassuring if true, though no Demon broadband here; dialup
only. The same TAM SDU as I've had for 20 years, effectively
connectivity only but adequate for email and usenet.
They do and I have, at least twice a day to various demonic numbers
depending on time/day of week.

As an aside, I did contact Namesco via their website (though had to
register of course to create an account there) to ask politely WTF was
going on. I *did* get a fairly quick response too but, like many
others have reported here, the response failed to answer any of the
questions I asked and advised me to use my shiny new Namesco account
to contact them if I required any more (?) information.

Since then, just advertising/promo offers for their products and
services. Still only 3 weeks to wait to see what happens (if indeed
anything happens...).

Incidentally -- and probably unrelated -- the volume of junk mail
arriving has increased noticeably since I registered. Possibly a
coincidence but I thought I'd mention it in case anybody else had
noticed the same.
Seconded!
Pete
--
Believe those who are seeking the truth.
Doubt those who find it. - André Gide

On Friday, in article <mij0bt$1fp$1...@dont-email.me>
Good point; I was thinking too much about the technical side and not
enough about the fiscal aspect. If intY think Namesco are supposed to
be paying them for hotair.dcu mail, and Namesco don't do so (because
you're not paying them), it could well go wrong. (Especially if Demon's
payment to intY is just a lump sum for an arbitrary and notional number
of customers rather than "this pittance is for hotair.dcu".)
Hmm, yes. You really do need to get to the bottom of this...

Thanks for confirming my paranoia, I think :)

--
Tony

On Friday, in article <jMBDTKKk...@soft255.demon.co.uk>
> > [...]
He gave his name as Mark; I didn't press for a surname. If I caught his
name correctly, his team leader seemed to be called Martin.
The mail administration portal used for setting up new Demon e-mail
mailbox accounts, adding secondary "aliases" to accounts etc.

https://mailadmin.demon.co.uk/

If all you've ever done is use the default catch-all mailbox, you may
never have used it!
That fits; ISTR you are/were a Dial Loyalty customer.
I was going to point you in Pete's direction, but I see he's already
done so himself!
And that was my problem with it. As someone who wanted to keep both
e-mail and web site, I could either continue paying £10/month + VAT to
Demon/Vodafone *and* pay £4.99/month + VAT to Namesco, making it £215.86
a year all in, or switch entirely to Namesco and get a better overall
service for £57.50 all in (for the first year; £71.86/year thereafter.)

By doing this, I have signed the death warrant for ashes.dcu at some
unknown point in the future, when Demon/Vodafone take away the DNS
records they are providing for it; it's possible that if I had remained
a TAM SDU customer I could have kept the hostname indefinitely (see
below). But I suspect not; I reckon it won't be long before Vodafone
decide to rid themselves of the pesky luddites who persist in using
hopelessly outdated technology that Vodafone no longer wish to maintain,
at which point dialup customers will be out on their ears too. (Sorry,
Pete!)
Yup. And I have recently started to wonder if this -- the removal of
"legacy" DNS records for ex-customers' hostnames, and clawing back the
precious IPv4 addresses associated with them -- may be what the "you’ll
be able to continue to use these for around two more years" stuff is all
about.

Bear in mind that the "two years" claim is only made in the FAQ for
people who have been fully migrated to Namesco (including their
hostname.dcu e-mail). Here is what they actually say, in context, taken
from http://help.demon.net/domain-hosting-transfer/ :

Who is my new provider?

Your services have been transferred to intY Limited in partnership
with Namesco (names.co.uk). All future invoices and support services
will be provided via Namesco from 1st April 2015.


I have a hostname.demon.co.uk email address and website; will I be
able to continue to use this?

Yes, Namesco will be migrating email addresses and websites that sit
under the demon.co.uk domain. You’ll be able to continue to use these
for around two more years. Services that were previously provided free
will incur a small fee. Namesco will be writing to customers with a
special offer to allow you to continue with the previously free
services.

This is clearly aimed at people who have been fully migrated to Namesco,
so *not* "broadband" customers, who ISTM come under the following
provision of the "Important Service Change" annoucement:

This is to let you know that all Demon Web Hosting, Domain and *SOME*
email products will transfer to intY Limited [...] [my emphasis]

[...]

This change does not affect any other services provided by Vodafone,
including any free email accounts you may have.

So I now suspect that people who continue to get their connectivity from
Demon/Vodafone may not lose their *.demon.co.uk hostnames after all,
even though those of us who migrated fully to Namesco will lose theirs.
But who knows?

> > [...]
I'm still slightly hoping that Namesco aren't like that; what's more
likely is that someone helpful and intelligent will not want to spend
any more of his career doing front-line support than he absolutely has
to.
Yes and no; I really meant that the Starter Hosting package comes with
its own mail hosting (rather than just mail forwarding, for instance,
which allows you to set forwarding rules but doesn't provide any mail
storage in IMAP/POP3 mailboxes).

Namesco's Starter Hosting package comes with 10 "email accounts" but
unlimited "email addresses", which I suspect (backed up somewhat by the
information mouse-over text on their web site) means an intY-like thing
where you can only set up a limited number of mailbox accounts, but each
one can have an arbitrary number of addresses associated with it (the 10
accounts doubtless includes the catch-all mailbox). It also has "mail
forwarding".

I'll have a play with it and report back (the mail aspect of my hosting
package is present, even if it doesn't actually receive ashes.dcu mail
because the Demon-controlled MX records still point at mx*.demon.co.uk).

On Friday, in article
<iidqkadmqmeafkvmu...@4ax.com>
[...]
Absolutely. Less hassle all round.

Bear in mind it's not Namesco's fault that Demon/Vodafone screwed up and
transferred your "should have been deleted" web site to them; and their
telephone support people are, IME, spectacularly pleasant and helpful
compared to Demon's script-reading droids. (Some of them perhaps don't
always know as much as they might, but for a simple thing like "I don't
want the web site: can you please delete it and not bill me for
anything?" you should have no problems.)
8-)

I'm not going to ask how you would pronounce that...

If only that were true. After considerable correspondence, I had a mail
clearly stating that namesco had zapped my old site (
www.corfe-castle.demon.co.uk ).

Several days later, the ruddy thing is still up!

A real embarrassment, since many of the links have been broken, data is
missing and of course the contact addresses are now defunct.

Frankly, neither modern Demon or Namesco could in my opinion, run the
proverbial piss up in a brewery.

Les.

What they probably meant is that you will no longer get billed for it.

I'm in the same position, having told them that I do not intend to pay
for the continuation of my web pages. They are still there. They may or
may not disappear on the 1st June. I may or may not be able to have ftp
access after the 1st June. Time will tell.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

You could just login to the control panel and delete *.* from the file
manager. Then you will be sure that it is gone, defunct Norwegian blue.
Namesco were dealt a bum hand by Demon/Vodafone and stood little chance
of unwinding the resulting mess by either the notional auspicious
transfer date of April 1st (April Fools writ large) or two weeks later.

They were not provided with enough info to do a decent job.

I have a fair amount of sympathy for Namesco technical support who have
had to field many questions caused by Vodaphone's wilful incompetence.

We still don't have a *CLEAR* understanding of the position of the
various types of account wrt to future stability or continued existence.
If it was their intention to haemorrhage customers and generate maximum
annoyance then they have been very successful.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message <mil3hn$ara$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> writes
Well, here's where I am:

Part of my background involved beta testing where I found I had some
ability to be as stupid as potential users, and so discovered lots of
faults that clever people missed.

I have a Demon account dating back to the last century which at some
time changed to some sort of HomeOffice broadband with the "free" web
space and unlimited email addresses. For this I pay £21.27 + vat per
month by cheque (or similar) against the bill that, now, Vodaphone send.

I have had no communication from anyone apart from the regular bills. I
have not communicated with either Demon, Vodaphone, Inty or Namesco.

I believe I can no longer ftp to my website, although I may have
forgotten how to, but it still appears as if hosted by Demon and is
still there. It still says that the software offered will run on NT or
even Windows 95.

Email and broadband continue to work as they always did.

This month's bill, dated 1st May, has just arrived from Vodaphone. I
will pay it.

Following guidance from a reply here, I checked my FTTC prospects in
cabinet 5 round the corner, which said the anticipated date for
available capacity was May 6th.

Over a week ago I rang PlusNet about moving to FTTC with them with a
permanent ip address. The person on the phone was very helpful and
seemed knowledgeable and answered all my questions.
That day I sent them an email via their website listing each point I had
raised and asking for comfirmation of prices and how to proceed to FTTC
with them asap after May 6th.

I have had no reply.

On May 6th the BT site to check fibre provision on my phone number
changed the date from May 6th to June 3rd.
--
Bill

I cant - I have no login and was never given one. I did ring namesco,
but the only way that I could do it myself was to create an account. As
I pointed out - the last thing I wanted was an account.

Here is the reply from namesco:

"Hi Lesley

Thank you for your email.

I have now deleted the hosting and any content from our servers.

Kind Regards

Victoria Meigh"

Pretty definitive I would say, apart from the spelling of my name.
Complete bunkum, unfortunately.

Les.

On Fri, 8 May 2015, Simon Turner <si...@twoplaces.co.uk> posted:
[...]
This is entirely credible and matches what I hoped at the time was the
correct interpretation of the letter (yes, paper letter) I received from
Vodafone on 25 March. More tellingly, it fits with my experience (or
lack of experience) since then.

I have a HomeOffice a/c (forget which one, about £25 p/m) which I use
for email only, but ALL my emails use other domains forwarded to the
original hostname.dcu, and the main other domain is wolff.co.uk which
was registered for me and ever since hosted by Demon, with email
forwarding to hostname.dcu.

The Vodafone letter was specifically about transfer of "Demon Web
Hosting and Domain products to IntY Limited" on 31 March 2015. The
letter was dated 19 March, ref. EBU_ID810 (which I can't decipher), from
Phil Mottram, Vodafone Enterprise Director.

I took it that I received that letter solely because of the hosting of
the domain product wolff.co.uk.

It said invoices for these products would be sent by IntY's partner
names.co.uk, which I looked up and found was really Namesco Limited - a
rather juvenile error by Mr Mottram, by the way.

The letter said the change does not affect any other services provided
by Vodafone, including any free email accounts I might have.

I received a "Welcome to names.co.uk" email on 1 April and another on 8
April which said "All email services will continue to be provided by
intY Limited and there are no technical changes to existing email
services during this migration".

This last statement reads to me as if nothing was really going to change
on the email front except administratively.

The domain wolff.co.uk does show up in my Namesco control panel, with no
entry for mail forwarding. I reckoned I would be wise not to try to
interfere with that, as in practice it was still forwarding to
hostname.dcu as before.

What confirms, for me, that no technical changes have been made, is
this: I have about 60 subdomains for wolff.co.uk that were set up when
Demon's email moved to IntY, and those different subdomains are
configured to land in the mailboxes of one of three users in the
hostname.dcu mail account (I hope that's clear), and this system has in
no discernible way been disturbed. All those subdomains still work as
they were designed to, and are still manageable through the Demon Email
Management Portal as before. (Can't remember if I've tried changing any
subdomains recently.)

Nevertheless, I'm moving the whole thing, but am held up by Openreach
delays (aggregate delay now measured in years, and my MP is the Minister
for Rural Broadband!) in installing a new fibre connection before I can
get an FTTP contract operational with Claranet, who seem able to cope
with what I will need. FTTP ETA is still about one month away; my
fingers remain crossed that the sky will not fall on my head come 1
June.

[...]
--
Paul

[I am quoting in full]

Further down your post you explain that your primary interest is your
wolff.co.uk domain which was originally hosted on Demon.

My understanding was that the above reference to email was intended to
apply to hostname.dcu email, not for example to hostname.co.uk email
for domains transferred from Demon to Namesco.

Now the current state of play is that the Registrar for wolff.co.uk is
now Namesco Ltd and the nameservers (*.phase8.net) are Namesco's
(Phase8 was acquired by Namesco in 2001 (see Wikipedia entry for
Namesco)).

However, the mx entries for wolff.co.uk in the DNS records held on
Namesco's servers *do* point to mx*.demon.co.uk.

This means that at this moment in time you are dependent on Namesco
not changing the MX entries for wolff.co.uk and Demon's mailservers
continuing to accept (and of course correctly route) email for
wolff.co.uk.

I have had similar configurations as an interim measure when moving
domains from one host to another, i.e. having the MX records for the
domain at host1 pointing to the mailservers at host 2. The difference
being I have the domain already set up at host2 including mail
configuration.
names.co.uk is the 'company domain' of Namesco Limited. These days
many businesses use their 'company domain name' as a brand. Indeed, if
you go to the Namesco web site and look at the top banner on their
entry page you will find names.co.uk (prefixed by a small graphical
object) and underneath it the text "A NAMESCO BRAND".
Strictly speaking mail isn't being forwarded by Namesco. Namesco's
nameservers are returning Demon's mailserver addresses as the
destination for wolff.co.uk email.
Not 100 per cent certain what you mean by "the whole thing". How do
you intend to migrate your rather complex email configuration which at
the moment would require co-operation from both Demon and Namesco?

Chris S

>
>[...]

On Saturday, in article <143115...@nospam.demon.co.uk>
It's sad: their support people are jolly nice, helpful and friendly, but
the level of support they give leaves a lot to be desired in almost all
cases.

I have concluded that the only way to get answers out of the them is by
telephone; the on-line support ticket system (a) has far too much
latency (2-3 working days for a reply!) and (b) they never, ever bother
to read what has been written before.
Interesting; I haven't had any adverts or offers from Namesco (not even
the cheap-for-a-year-then-ruinously-expensive-thereafter .com domain
that they have been pushing to other Demon migrants), presumably because
I was already a customers of theirs from when they bought up Serve360
back in 2007.
Are you intending to retain your ex-Demon web site? If so, have you
made arrangements to pay Namesco for the privilege?
I haven't noticed any increase in ashes.dcu junk mail; and since the
intY end hasn't changed at all since before the migration, I can't see
how it it would be related -- unless you think Namesco have somehow
(deliberately or by some sort of technical cockup) managed to raise the
spammer-visibility of people's *.dcu addresses?

On Saturday, in article <mikv8m$ui$1...@dont-email.me>
Oh good grief, that's pathetic. (Especially having seen Victoria
Meigh's actual reply downthread.)

Ring them up and shout at them.
I think Namesco might at least be able to find a brewery, unlike
Demon/Vodafone who would probably send people to a nunnery, but it's
hard to argue with your conclusion. Sigh.

Which is cheaper?

Leave it up and waste 20Mb?
Give instruction to get a tech to spend time deleting it?

And that I think is how we wound up with Demon passing them on to
Namesco in the first place.

On Saturday, in article
<5iyUKNLj...@itsound.demon.co.uk> Billa...@gmail.com
You can indeed no longer FTP to your web site; it's now held on a server
belonging to Namesco rather than the old Demon/Vodafone one (the server
has the same *name*, service.homepages.demon.net, but that name now
resolves to a Namesco IP address rather than a Demon one). The site
being served by Namesco is a snapshot of your Demon site as it was in
early March (any updates you made during the next month will have been
discarded).
Which software is this? (I can't recall seeing such a claim, but I may
not have been looking in the right place.)
That fits with our current understanding: only your web site has been
affected. If you wish to retain it, you will need to pay Namesco to
host it (despite Demon's manifestly untrue claim that "Customers will be
offered either the same prices or lower prices than they are currently
paying for services").

If you don't want to keep the site, you can either wait and see what
happens, or contact Namesco (0345 363 3633, option 1), explain that it's
your site and is now unwanted, and ask them to delete it. (Whether they
will actually do so is another matter; see Les's problems elsethread.)
Good plan.
That's disappointing; looks like being owned by BT (who have a truly
appalling attitude to customer service) is finally beginning to rub off
on PlusNet.
8-(

In message <20150510.10...@twoplaces.co.uk>, Simon Turner
<si...@twoplaces.co.uk> writes

in answer to my badly written post:
Sorry. I was referring to the hardware and software that my website was
offering for supply and install, rather than Demon's offering.
I just put it in to show how out of date and unloved my website had
become. I'll almost certainly just leave it to wither.

With regard to Plusnet, during my phone call to the helpful sales person
I remarked on how long it had taken to get through to him. He did sound
Yorkshire, and said it was because of the success of their current
advertising, and they believed their sales and support response would
recover.

It could be that they will not reply to my mail asking for pricing and
provision confirmation until OpenReach actually provide the needed
capacity to the local cabinet rather than just moving the date. I want
to be a trusting soul.
--
Bill

On Sun, 10 May 2015, Chris S <myr9g...@snkmail.com> posted:
When wolff.co.uk was originally with Demon, it was my commercial face,
riding on the back of my hostname.dcu account (that is, it was set up
to forward mail to my hostname.dcu mailbox). I've never used
hostname.dcu as such as a public email address, except probably for
emails to Demon right at the start of my account. wolff.co.uk didn't
have its own email mailbox. As long as that mail continues to go to my
old Demon mailbox (now outsourced to IntY, of course) nothing has
changed.
Reassuring (not that I have any deep understanding of the jargon).
I too believe that is the case.
Maybe so. The error was to refer to a domain as if it were a legal
person. I was put to the trouble of looking it up in order to find out
who they had really assigned the relationship to.
So it seems that's what the original letter meant - the domain
wolff.co.uk was being lodged with Namesco, not Demon, but the email
handling would remain unchanged. What wasn't added was "until something
does change, of course".
Appoint Claranet my official ISP, and give them hosting for wolff.co.uk
(and other things I want done that aren't relevant to this discussion).
By setting up empty mailboxes for the domain and its subdomains with
Claranet while waiting for my new fibre connection (they are ok with
this). When that's in place, I'll ask for my cards (migration
authorisation code) from Namesco, who hold the domain at the moment.
Claranet will take over wolff.co.uk and its subdomains and then do what
they have to with MX records, and when email to wolff.co.uk and the
subdomains is clearly arriving correctly I will close my Demon account.


--
Paul

Sounds a good plan although I should point out that AFAIA migrations
authorisation codes (MAC) are specifically related to broadband
provsion. For .UK domains someone with access to the DNS Zone files
for wolff.co.uk neads to change the IPSTAG to CLARANET. That would
either be you if the facility was available via a control panel,
Namesco support, or worst case scenario, NOMINET.

In other words, you don't ask Namesco for a MAC, you ask them to
change the IPSTAG to CLARANET and thereby allow Claranet to become the
registrar for your domain. Scroll down the following page for more
info:

http://www.claranetsoho.co.uk/faqs-web-hosting

I suspect you have made a good choice for serrvice provider given your
requirements. I now recall the name Claranet from early Demon days.
The founder, Charles Nasser, still at the helm unlike Demon whose
founder Cliff Stanford sold out in 1998 for 66 million GBP.

Managed services biz Claranet adds £107m to war chest.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/managed_services_biz_claranet_adds_107m_to_war_chest/
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/qxd7bg5

Charles Nasser – Claranet
http://tellseries.com/past-events/charles-nasser-claranet/

Cliff Stanford
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Stanford

Chris S

...and why there'll be zombie sites lurming in www.*.demon.co.uk for as
long as the domains exist, I guess.

I wonder how long www.chocky.demon.co.uk will last.

I got a MAC from demon on 20/4/15 my broadband moved on 27/4/15. I'll
keep polling Demon for mail for as long as the server lets me, though by
now it should only be getting spam and the odd stray from (near enough)
zombie organisations I've not managed to persuade either to stop sending
stuff, or change the email address they're sending to.

--
..Rick Hewett

In message <mt6vkah64ouo0j0qo...@4ax.com>, Chris S
<myr9g...@snkmail.com> writes
Sadly that is probably about £66M more than it is worth now.


Adrian
--
To Reply :
replace "bulleid" with "adrian" - all mail to bulleid is rejected
Sorry for the rigmarole, If I want spam, I'll go to the shops
Every time someone says "I don't believe in trolls", another one dies.

I'm positively baffled by this, but if I wanted to go more deeply into
it, which I don't, I'd start off by asking what distinguishes
'broadband' from anything else, and then go on to say that an MAC
shouldn't be limited by mode of access. M is M, when all's said and
done.
I've talked with Claranet, and so far I retain confidence in them. I
think they will know what to do, and prompt me if I need to do anything
specific myself. That's what I'll be paying them for.
>
>I suspect
and I hope
They aren't cheap, but I care more about a competent onshore service
than about a few pounds a month.
--
Paul

In message <20150509.11...@twoplaces.co.uk>, Simon Turner
Thanks for those; noted. (Well, post marked as keep.)
[]
I have vague memory of mentions of it around the time of the change (to
IntY?), about 2012 was it? Can't remember if I _did_ do anything with
that portal; I remember I had to do odd things with Turnpike's routing
rules.
Well, although parts of Demon seem to think I am a Dial Loyalty customer
(and that this is the same as a TAM one), I believe I am a TAM customer
(whose TAM was halved to FAM, well before the Dial Loyalty offering was
invented), and also that they are _not_ the same product.
[]
Would that 57.50 then 71.86 cover both hosting and email for a h.d.c.u
customer, or only a completely new domain?
I get the strong _impression_ that remaining a TAM (or in my case FAM)
user is not an option being offered.
[]
I have been assuming that, if the two years (approx.) period means
anything, it means the time at which *.d.c.u will be discontinued -
possibly including the IPv4 clawback too.
It's just not clear who the "Your" is addressed to: dcu users, other
domains that used to be hosted by Demon (but didn't have demon somewhere
in their name), both, or something else.
a) AFAIAC, _nothing_ was provided "free".
b) this contravenes the "same or lower".
(Well, they haven't yet. Apart from correspondence _I've_ instigated,
I've had nothing but the paper letter.)
Well, I got the letter, despite being only a dcu user - I've never had
broadband from Demon (I get it from PlusNet; I did look at demon's
offering when I took up broadband, but no way was it competitive for the
simple offering that I wanted).
Indeed!
And I wouldn't blame him. Like the helpful Bob Pullen at PlusNet.
Ah, I've never got into IMAP. I do, obviously (?), rely on them
providing some POP3 storage until I collect.
Apart from forwarding, which I do understand as a concept, the above is
over my head - but please don't try to explain it further (-:! [I just
collect mail for anyt...@h.d.c.u, and sort out where it goes once I've
got it - well, in practice, I put everything for G6JPG@ in one box, and
everything else in another.]
I'd be a middle-class hero if I had the time, but I've got to go to Waitrose
first. - Tim Vine, RT 2014/2/15-21

In message <SW45$wE7Mo...@wolff.co.uk>, Paul Wolff
<boun...@two.wolff.co.uk> writes:
[]
Except that, presumably, IntY expect to be paid, and presumably whoever
is paying them expect to be paid (unless, as someone has suggested, it
is all included in some flat fee Demon are paying IntY - which is
possible but I suspect isn't the case).
It's header line implied something like that, but the rest of it was
badly enough written that we can't be sure _what_ it was about.
European Broadcasting Union (-:?
I _don't_ have any other domains, hosted by Demon [or anyone else for
that matter], only the h.d.c.u type - but I still got the paper letter.
Others here have suggested that Namesco and IntY are separate companies,
though owned by the same holding company. (And there seems to be some
suggestion that IntY don't deal direct with individuals.)
I didn't (and still haven't yet).
Do you mean you have subdomains - which I take to mean something like
xyz.wolff.co.uk - which you have (or at least can) set up as separate
websites, or are you just talking about email addresses?
[]
"OLTION'S COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE
Bang! ...crumple." - Jery Oltion

I'm certain you're right. It could be that they don't even have the
ability to read any history; the email I received said not to reply as
their mailbox was not monitored and looking again at it, it could
almost have been an automated reply.

..
Nah, not interested in keeping the site -- I only used it "because it
was there" and never really did anything with it anyway. It can wither
away.
That was what I vaguely suspected. But the level of spam is now back
to normal so I can only assume it was a coincidental spike; thanls for
the feedback.

I left Demon on the 30th and set up mail forwarding well in advance
to a domain I've had for years but had previously used for family
emails. I'm still getting the odd email through Demon, mostly spam
and duplicates from firms who don't delete old addresses when given
new ones.

My website ceased to exist on the old demon.co.uk address around the
second week in April, don't know if it still exists in any other
form.

--
Les_WT

On Monday, in article <nkjUDGWV...@wolff.co.uk>
I know you said you didn't want to go more deeply into it, but for the
benefit of anyone else who might be similarly baffled: "broadband" is a
method of Internet connectivity, typically using some kind of DSL
(Digital Subscriber Line), and in the UK (currently: it's all about to
change) if you want to "migrate" your broadband Internet access from one
ISP (e.g. Demon) to another (e.g. Claranet) you will need a Migration
Authorisation Code from your current ISP to do it.

Domain names (e.g. wolff.co.uk) are not a means of Internet access, and
are entirely independent of such: at present, your domain is hosted by
Namesco, but your broadband is (I presume) provided by Demon. Your
domain name can be moved/transferred (the term "migration" is not
generally used for domains) to another hosting company completely
independently of your broadband access -- this has in fact already
happened, when Demon transferred your domain name to Namesco without
affecting your broadband.

Getting a MAC from Demon to transfer your broadband to Claranet would
not affect your domain name; you will have to move that from Namesco to
Claranet separately, using the method Chris outlined. Claranet and/or
Namesco will be able to assist with this. Bear in mind that Namesco
will probably charge you a fee to transfer the domain away from them.
Never heard of EU workers or birds needing to get a MAC before setting
off... 8-)

On Monday, in article <O7c4OhdO...@soft255.demon.co.uk>
[...]
Ah, sorry; must have misremembered. I had a recollection that Demon had
decided you were on Dial Loyalty after all.

Dial Loyalty and the special reduced-price (FAM) Standard Dial Up
*should* be separate products, as you say, but it's far from clear that
Demon/Vofafone agree. I almost wonder if "Dial Loyalty" was Demon's
name for the FAM SDU product -- a "Dial"-up package only offered to some
customers to induce "Loyalty" to Demon -- and at some stage they
silently dropped the dial-up part of it and started to offer it to
people as a "keep your e-mail address, but nothing else" package.

Or perhaps DL actually did feature dialup access, but they stopped
telling people about that part -- and the only difference between TAM
SDU and FAM DL was that the TAM customers officially got to keep their
web sites? ISTR a Demon/Vodafone person telling you recently that DL
was a "dialup" package...

Doubtless we'll never know the truth. I don't suppose you've got any
old invoices that might shed any light on the precise name(s) of your
package over the years, have you?
h.d.c.u -- I haven't taken out a new domain with them, and the list of
current products in my control panel now says "Starter Hosting
(Limitless) for ashes.dcu". The ashes.dcu entry in the list of domains
on my account shows icons for Linux Web Hosting and Apache HTTP Server.

What will happen if/when Demon/Vodafone remove the DNS entries for
ashes.dcu I have no idea; I imagine I will have to choose between
cancelling the hosting package or registering a domain to go with it
(or, I suppose, leave it active but disconnected from the Internet by
virtue of having no DNS records associated with it!)
And yet, after the 1 April migration date, they sent me an invoice for
my next year of TAM Standard Dial Up; and Pete is still able to dial in.

I suspect that -- rightly or wrongly -- Demon/Vodafone have no concept
of the FAM dialup package as distinct from Dial Loyalty (and perhaps
never did? see musings above), and you really were lumped in with the DL
customers and fully migrated to Namesco.
Agreed. The real question is whether this will apply to all *.dcu
customers, or only those who were fully migrated to Namesco and no
longer have a relationship with Demon/Vodafone.
Since this was the opening entry in an FAQ for those being migrated to
Namesco (i.e. those who fell under the "all Demon Web Hosting, Domain
and some email products" category, which it appears did not include
web-site-less broadband customers), I take it to apply to them, which is
probably "both" in your list above. But this is a Demon/Vodafone
proclamation, so all bets are off as to what it *really* means.
Indeed. I think Demon/Vodafone have redefined "free" to mean "anything
that didn't have its own specific invoiced-for line item"; in their
minds, the one and only thing we pay for is getting packets routed
to/from the Internet, and everything else -- e-mail, web space etc. --
is/was "free", provided out of the kindness of their hearts and
therefore something that can be taken away whenever they feel like it.
Oh well, that's easily fixed: I'll just write a mighty screed...
... ah. 8-)

A tiny screed, then: forwarding redirects mail to a different address,
but e-mail has to have a final destination with storage (mailbox, server
mail spool etc.) where it sits until you choose to download/read it.
Mail forwarding only provides in-transit address rewriting: it provides
no storage. Hosting provides storage (and access to that storage).

That should be 30th March, must read before sending :-(

--
Les_WT

On Sunday, in article <iEEyj8C4...@itsound.demon.co.uk>
Ah. That's nothing; most of the software available for download from my
(ex-) Demon web site runs on DOS! 8-)
They certainly seem to be advertising hard at the moment.
Hope you're right!

On Monday, in article <9bl0WHeo...@soft255.demon.co.uk>
Indeed; I was concentrating on the technical aspects and not really
thinking about the fiscal ones. As you say, there will doubtless be a
change of who pays intY for your mail service, which may have a
considerable impact on whether it keep going or not...

On Mon, 11 May 2015, Simon Turner <si...@twoplaces.co.uk> posted:
Ah, that's a point. Of course, the MAC is for actually transferring the
far end of my broadband to another ISP, not for the domain. Thanks for
putting me right. In that case I don't think I need one. Claranet are
not doing anything with my existing 'phone' number / copper wire /
things at the exchange end of it. They are bringing me one end of a
brand new long glass fibre, which they will have firm hold of the other
end of. All I will then need to do is to liaise with Claranet and
Namesco to give Claranet custody of wolff.co.uk, so Claranet can attach
it to my mailbox(es) that they already have waiting, which I will then
reach through this fibre, and pick up my sparkly new opto-electronic
mail.

My copper wire broadband will continue until I end my broadband contract
with Demon. Note to self: check all other mail forwarding settings from
other domains that I have, to make sure they are all to wolff.co.uk and
not to hostname.dcu. It'll help to have both services running in
parallel until I am confident I can switch Demon off. It is my business
domain, after all.
I wonder. I don't have a contract with them, unless Demon's T&C had a
clause saying they could assign the wolff.co.uk hosting contract between
them and me, but I don't think Namesco have sent me any variation of the
terms. Maybe I'll look the terms up. I see that I signed my original
Demon contract exactly 20 years, to the day, before the OpenReach
engineer's appointment to make the fibre connection into the house.
That's a lot of paperwork to read through!
Paul

On Mon, 11 May 2015, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6...@soft255.demon.co.uk>
posted:
The latest company returns for y/e 31 Dec 2013 say:

Name & Registered Office:
INTY LIMITED
170 AZTEC WEST
BRISTOL
BS32 4TN
Company No. 03438922

Inty Limited has 5 directors. Its founding director was Mr Mark Andrew
Herbert. The business currently employs 20-49 people. Inty Limited has
no subsidiaries.

The company has net assets of around -£1.5m according to the 2013
accounts. On the other hand, Inty Holdings Ltd of the same address, of
which Mr Herbert is a director, has net assets of about £4m, and just
one subsidiary, Inty Ltd, which seems to depend on the goodwill of its
holding company. But look at the actual accounts and returns at
Companies House before making any judgement.

Name & Registered Office:
NAMESCO LIMITED
ACTON HOUSE
PERDISWELL PARK
WORCESTER
WORCESTERSHIRE
WR3 7GD
Company No. 03913408

Namesco Limited has 6 directors. I don't see any overlap, but don't have
the full list. It employed 100-199 people in 2013 and had net assets of
£5.4m at 31 Dec 2013. It has 6 subsidiaries. Its turnover and profits
look better than IntY's to me.
Email addresses, on the lines of anyt...@xyz.wolff.co.uk. I use them
for different classes of correspondence, where xyz is meaningful to me.

--
Paul

This response is just to pre-empt any further 'crossed wires'. Your
statement above implies that you are contracting with Claranet to
provide an FTTP service (Fibre To The Premises) i.e. the fibre optic
service will terminate in your premises. Hence Claranet will be your
ISP for the FTTP service while for an interim period the Demon
provided service will continue to run over copper pairs to your
premises from your local exchange.

The less expensive broadband service utilizing fibre optic cable is
FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet). In this configuration fibre optic is used
between the exchange and a nearby street cabinet but the remaining leg
to your premises would use your existing 'copper' telephone wires. In
this configuration you could not have two ISP's operating in parallel
unless you had two copper phone lines between you and your street
cabinet which in reality would mean two phone lines to your local
exchange.

Chris S

That's around the time I stopped being able to update my website on
Demon. However, there's still a version of it lurking on a server,
presumably at Namesco. Comparing

http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/radio/gb2cw_progress.png

with

http://www.chocky.myzen.co.uk/radio/gb2cw_progress.png

suggests that the Namesco/Demon version dates from the end of February,
rather than from the last time I was able to update the Demon version.

I hope www.chocky.demon.co.uk vanishes soon, but I suspect it could be
there, zombie-like, for a while.

--
..Rick Hewett http://www.hewett.org/
The trouble is that things *never* get better, they just stay the same,
only more so.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)

On Mon, 11 May 2015, Chris S <myr9g...@snkmail.com> posted:
Good one! Feel free.
Correct.
Actually, I do have that too. It'll be belt, braces and suspenders here
before I finally cut away the spares, once I have my own private fibre
link. This accumulation is the consequence of BT failing to deliver
fibre when they first promised it, and my putting other systems in place
to deal with what I expected would happen, but didn't.

--
Paul

It seems Paul you have the kitchen sink deployed as well as belt,
braces and suspenders! :-) Being serious, as you obviously regard
your system as 'mission critical' you seem to have been making the
right decisions when necessary. It would be of interest to have the
occasional report on how the migration is progressing. Anyway, I wish
you good luck as even the best laid plans need a little luck here and
there.

Chris S

In message <20150511.08...@twoplaces.co.uk>, Simon Turner
Some parts of Demon do seem to have decided that, or rather have stated
that they are the same product.
t'other way round, they implied at the time [of telling me I was on FAM]
that it was a reward for my already-by-then loyalty, rather than to keep
me with them (though it had that effect).
Could be ...
... or could be!
I probably have, but am not sure where! However, in (electronic)
communications with them right up to one on 2015-4-23 (my birthday
FWIW), they've ended with "Details concerning this email have been added
to the notes on your Demon account.". At some point soon, I'm almost
certainly going to do a FOI request for a copy of those notes; they
should make fascinating reading!
Sounds tempting. My only (well, main) reservation is the idea of paying
a year up front when things could go pear-shaped in a lot less than a
year.
[]
I was on monthly payment, as I have been for years - auto from credit
card until about December 2014, then DD once they'd managed to get that
set up properly (which took them at least two attempts).
I suspect you're right, now ...
... though I think there was a difference, once.

If I have been migrated to Namesco (it certainly looks like the website
has), I've had no contact from them. Whatever information DeThusVod may
or may not have given them about contact information for me, they could
have done so via email, so that's no excuse.
[]
Other than having a (sub)domain and email address that has demon in it.
I haven't heard from Namesco, and it's now 11 May ...
... but I _did_ get the letter (about web hosting etc.).
I don't think they ought to be able to do that, though I suspect I can't
afford sufficient lawyers to prove it.
I haven't been using them for connectivity for some years (I've been
using PlusNet), so all I _have_ been paying them for is (incoming only -
outgoing is via PlusNet) email. (And the tiny website, but I haven't
updated that for years, though occasionally used it like Dropbox without
the ad.s.)
As I said, I do understand forwarding, which doesn't require storage
(except very briefly); it was the difference between "email addresses"
and "mailboxes" (both of which imply a storage requirement, or do to me)
that I was [and am happy to remain (-:!] hazy about.

Anyway: nothing from "Leif" today, on either of the subjects he'd
promised a day or less - the "two years or what" and "how are Namesco
going to contact" (or about anything else for that matter) - so he's
definitely going to get a call tomorrow. With a recorder running.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.' Pablo Picasso, 1968

On Monday, in article <143132...@nospam.demon.co.uk>
If you're only dealing with them via e-mail, I suppose that's possible;
but their on-line support enquiries system, which is what I had been
using to deal with them before getting fed up and switching to the
telephone, has a full history showing every part of the conversation.
They definitely have access to it; they just don't bother to read it.

On Monday, in article <mT8k+Rb1...@wolff.co.uk>
> [...]
>
> Inty Limited has 5 directors. [...] Inty Holdings Ltd of the same
> address [...] and just one subsidiary, Inty Ltd [...]
>
> [...]
> the full list. [...]

Directors are not the same as owners. intY Holdings Ltd is 100% owned
by Orascom TMT Investments Sarl (OTMTI); they also own a majority of the
shares in Dada Group, who purchased Namesco in 2007.

Namesco support people describe intY as a sister company with whom they
have a special relationship.

In message <20150512.08...@twoplaces.co.uk>, Simon Turner
<si...@twoplaces.co.uk> writing at 09:28:25 in his/her local time
opines:-
Given that hierarchy, intY seem more like an auntY than a sister, to
Namesco :-)
--
Roy Brown 'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd useful, or believe to be beautiful' William Morris

...and I'd point out the fact that Namesco will charge you a tenner to
move the domain from somewhere you didn't want it in the first place!

--
regards andy

Another incredibly useful thread on this group. I think. I'm not sure whether I'm now more confused or not...

Like a couple of folks above, I've been with demon since the oldschool dialup days and do have and use the free "homepages" webspace. I ended up on some ~£25/month "home office" scheme. I've never paid for any of Demons other hosting services. Having not heard anything from Namesco yet, I was getting a bit worried about all this first of June stuff and what's likely to stop working (did get around to calling Namesco support this afternoon but after 10 mins waiting in a queue thought I'd check here instead).

Based on the above thread, a summary of my current understanding would be: email is "safe" (for now), and the website (only) has just been caught up in some migration. And basically I should kiss the website goodbye (or worse, be resigned to a zombie version lurking there forever) unless I want to sign up for some hosting from Namesco, but I'm slightly wary of doing anything which might mess with email for the sake of the (to me) much lower value website; static hosting isn't hard to come by.

Actually, the thing which really confuses me now is which option gives me the best chance of email to my dcu domain address continuing to work for more than the 2 years originally mentioned... migrating to Namesco's email, or sticking with "Demon"?

How can I even tell for sure who's hosting my email? A commandline (I'm on Linux) "dig bottlenose.demon.co.uk MX" shows it going to mx2.demon.co.uk / mx1.demon.co.uk; I assume it shows something at Nameso/Inty for those who's email is being handled differently?

On Tue, 12 May 2015, "Wilkes, Andy" <ne...@benevolent.demon.co.uk>
posted:
Do they have any mechanism for preventing a domain from being moved
against their will?
--
Paul

In message <4a82b0fd-1c9c-4b8d...@googlegroups.com>,
tim...@gmail.com writes:
[]
[]
My understanding is that the answer is: neither. It WILL cease around 1
April 2017 (let's start using the date, as it's now under 2 years), no
matter _what_ you do, so it's time to make alternative arrangements in
good time to tell all your contacts (including changing things like
PayPal/Ebay, banks, etc., which may take some convincing).
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual
rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand, quoted by Deb
Shinder 2012-3-30

I'm not an expert on moving domains - but the processes are different
for .uk and other domains.

For UK domains, the current ISP/registrar has to change the IPS tag - I
guess they could refuse to do this until you pay (that was the message I
got). You could get Nominet to intervene - but this costs too.

Although .com/.org domain transfers are 'triggered' by the receiving
ISP/reg, I think the holding ISP could refuse to unlock the domain.

All in all, I decided to bite the bullet and pay for all the domains I
wanted to transfer - partly as a matter of principle for having had the
change forced on me; partly because their renewal costs seem way over
the top to me; partly because I want to consolidate all domains in one
place anyway.

--
regards andy

That is the reason Namesco gives for charging their customers for making
a change - that's what Nominet charges them. All other ISPs seem happy
to absorb the cost.

£10 for changing the IPS tag and £25 for changing a nameserver!

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

On Monday, in article <TvH$7DFikS...@soft255.demon.co.uk>
[...]
OK, that makes sense; like the "loyalty" discounts that (some) mobile
phone companies give you if you or a family member sign up for another
service with them, I suspect the real intent is to tie you in to the
supplier more tightly, thereby ensuring future loyalty. It worked with
you! 8-)

Nonetheless, I have always thought "Dial Loyalty" an odd name for a
package that is/was offered to Demon customers who were moving their
connectivity away from Demon, and which ostensibly only allowed them to
retain their e-mail addresses; why not call is "Mail Loyalty" or
similar? Why use the word "Dial" at all -- unless my hunch is right,
and this package really *is* the same FAM dialup package that some
dialup customers were offered in the Freeserve days (as a reward for
past loyalty / inducement for future loyalty), and they just stopped
mentioning, or silently removed, the dialup access part?
That would indeed make interesting reading.

Note that what you're talking about is a "subject access request" under
the Data Protection Act, rather than a FOI request under the Freedom of
Information Act (which only applies to public authorities).

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/personal-information/
https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/official-information/

[...]
An interesting point; but they don't know an explicit address for you
(only your hostname.dcu domain), and I suspect nobody at Namesco is even
aware of the concept of postmaster addresses -- they may well believe
that, in the absence of an explicit e-mail address or other contact
details for you, they have no means of getting in touch.

We both know they are wrong, but I wonder what percentage of people with
a domain actually *receive* mail sent to a role address like postmaster?
Pretty small, I'd wager.
True; I'll rephrase to "no longer have a 'paying customer' relationship
with Demon/Vodafone".
And you likely never will, unless you contact them and explain who you
are. Modulo the implicit postmaster e-mail address mentioned above,
they almost certainly have no details about you whatsoever.
Which is odd, and says a lot about how incredibly inept Demon/Vodafone's
handling of this should-and-could-have-been-straightforward migration
has been.
Quite.
> >A tiny screed, then: [...]
Ah, I see; sorry. A different tiny screed: as well as forwarding, which
needs no (persistent) storage at all, a system like the intY one allows
an arbitrary number of addresses to be associated with a single mailbox:
one primary, plus any number of secondary "aliases", mail for which also
gets stored in that single mailbox. (You may not be aware of this,
having not used the mail admin portal.)

This, I suspect, is what Namesco's package gives you: 10 "email
accounts" (i.e. mailboxes, each with its own username and password for
access) and unlimited "email addresses" (each one of which must either
have a forwarding rule, or be an "alias" for one of the 10 mailboxes).
I'd be interested to know what you find out.

For my part, Demon/Vodafone finally rang me back, almost a fortnight
after my enquiry about what exactly I was getting for my TAM and what
options there might be for reducing the cost; but I was briefly out at
the time, so all I got was an almost incomprehensibly thickly-accented
voicemail message suggesting that I ring their support number. 8-/

On Tuesday, in article
<4a82b0fd-1c9c-4b8d...@googlegroups.com>
Probably somewhere between the two, like the rest of us. 8-)
Did you hear anything from Demon/Vodafone about the migration?
Yup.
You should be safe if that's your plan: your e-mail should remain with
Demon/Vodafone even if you do decide to use Namesco to retain your
ex-Demon web site. Namesco provide something they call "Basic Hosting
(intY)" for migrated web sites, which gives you 25 MB of web space and
not a lot else, for £4.99 per month.

For "dial loyalty" customers (who no longer had any connectivity via
Demon/Vodafone, just access to mail), Namesco seems to have taken over
completely -- mail and web -- and it appears that such customers now
only receive invoices from Namesco. It's not clear to me exactly what,
and how much, Namesco are invoicing them for each month (their old "dial
loyalty" plus "basic hosting"? "Basic hosting" only? Something else?)

For others, which definitely seems to include those with broadband, and
possibly those with standard dialup as well, Demon/Vodafone have said
"this change does not affect any other services provided by Vodafone,
including any free email accounts you may have" which suggests a simple
continuation of your existing service (albeit without the web space).
We don't know; real information is incredibly hard to come by. But your
chances are at least no worse, and may be considerably better, if you
leave your e-mail (and broadband) with Demon/Vodafone.

Migrating fully to Namesco, as I have (theoretically) done, comes with
Demon's statement that "you'll be able to continue to use these
[addresses] for around two more years"; that, at least, makes it fairly
clear that there is no long-term future for those customers'
hostname.dcu addresses.

What the future holds for those that stay with Demon/Vodafone is
unclear. We have mostly been assuming, based AFAICS on no actual
evidence but merely on the enigmatic "two more years" statement, that
they are going to shut down the entire demon.co.uk domain, and all
sub-domains thereof, in around two years: if they do this, both current
Demon/Vodafone customers and those who migrated fully to Namesco will
obviously lose their e-mail addresses.

But I have recently started to wonder whether that's correct, or whether
it's only those whose mail was migrated to Namesco that will lose their
addresses: the DNS records for all *.demon.co.uk sub-domains are hosted
on Demon's nameservers, even though full migratees are no longer
customers of Demon/Vodafone, and therefore the two years may just be the
length of time that Demon/Vodafone are prepared to provide these "free"
DNS entries to ex-customers.

We don't know for sure; the closest thing I've heard to an "official"
response from Demon/Vodafone on this them telling Andy Frith that "there
are no plans to stop *@hostname.demon.co.uk email addresses provided
alongside their Broadband products", but who knows whether they're
telling the truth? And does that apply only to broadband customers as
stated, or also to die-hards with standard dialup accounts?
You can't, other than by asking both Demon/Vodafone and Namesco whether
they think they are hosting it. There seems to be no externally-visible
difference between *.demon.co.uk mail "hosted" by Demon/Vodafone (but
provided by intY) and that "hosted" by Namesco (but provided by intY).
No, it shows the same: whether nominally "hosted" by Demon/Vodafone or
Namesco, all the DNS records for *.demon.co.uk are served by Demon's
nameservers, and they all seem to have the same mx*.demon.co.uk MX
records.

Note that mx*.demon.co.uk resolve to IP addresses belonging to intY, who
have been providing the mail facilities for Demon/Vodafone since 2012.
Web sites now the same arrangement: they are still apparently served by
service.homepages.demon.net, but that actually resolves to an IP address
belonging to Namesco.

Isn't it more like the discount that they will give you when you get
passed to the retention team after demanding your porting code?

The retention team can offer you better deals than the basic droids.
At least you didn't have to waste your time talking to him.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message <NHm4hnSn...@soft255.demon.co.uk>, "J. P. Gilliver
(John)" <G6...@soft255.demon.co.uk> writes
I don't think that any of the present ramifications affect me.

However, a couple of weeks ago I 'bought' two non-Demon domains from
Namesco. [I think it was buy one (I bought a .co.uk), get a .uk free -
costing around £16 for three years.]

Namesco are now emailing me, offering me a .co.uk for 99p (presumably
because I have been a recent customer).

Is it likely that when Demon finally ceases, loyal customers will be
allowed to take their Demon domains with them?
--
Ian

In article <w50yKHD7...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk>,
ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk says...
That, indeed, is the million-dollar question. I don't think anyone knows
for sure, but since there's been no hint (that I've seen) that this might
be the case, I decided I might as well bite the bullet and leave Demon
now.

--
Cheers,
John

If by "take their demon domains with them" you mean *.demon.co.uk subdomains, I'm not sure how that would work: someone has to be the DNS authority for demon.co.uk in the same way as there's a registrar for .co.uk and so on, don't they? (You can't just go and register mydomain.demon.co.uk with the the co.uk authority!)

If someone did take on that role and could offer a simple DNS control panel for *.demon.co.uk subdomains (the sort of thing freeparking.co.uk and 123-reg offer for domains registered through them, which let you point the MX, A records for the domain and subdomains to wherever they need to be pointed), well that'd be pretty nice; there's no shortage of mailbox and web hosting providers out there, but there's only one demon.co.uk DNS authority. Not going to count on anything like that happening though. Hmmm... whois shows expiry date for demon.co.uk as 5th May 2016; one to keep an eye on if it was ever up for grabs!

Currently planning on migrating my ----.demon.co.uk presence to a ----.net domain I've been sitting on for years in anticipation of needing to move one day. Probably going to point the domain parking's www.----.demon.co.uk at an Amazon EC2 t1.micro instance (these work out about $5/month if you lock in to a 3 years "reserved instance"; I've used this for some other projects and like the flexibility VPS gives you compared with shared hosting), just need to identify a mailbox provider for a couple of mailboxes (I'm not interested in the hassle of running my own mailserver on EC2, and apparently its IP range is blacklisted to the hilt by the spam blocklists anyway).

Be careful their renewals and recurring charges are by no means the
cheapest around even if the enticer deals look attractive.
You think loyalty counts for anything these days? Remember that the way
to get the half price dialup loyalty discount was to threaten to leave!

Highly unlikely since they are subdomains of the domain demon.co.uk
When Vodafone nix the .dcu domain the whole lot of subdomains will
vanish in a puff of sulphurous smoke as befitting vanquished Demons.

They can't prevent you having your own domain missing the subdomain dot.

soft255demon.co.uk

or

g3ohxdemon.co.uk

Or perhaps more usefully soft255.co.uk and g3ohx.org.uk for instance.
About £7 for two years from the likes of 123-reg and similar.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

I have been categorically told by NamesCo Tech support that the answer to this question is definitely NO.

Also: @SimonTurner wrote
Well, It ain't necessarily so... at least not according to today's email that I received out of the blue from NamesCo TechSupport (after a 'closed', long and exhausting/fruitless ping-pong game of my Qs, their non-As) - see below....

"Please accept my apologies for the time this has taken to resolve. I have heard back from Vodafone who have confirmed that while the web hosting service for mysubdonain.dcu is with us, the name mysubdonain.dcu and email service is still managed by Vodafone. [REALLY????]

The web forwarding to www.myNewDomain.co.uk is currently in place and working correctly.

For any email configuration enquiries you will need to contact Vodafone directly.

As you mentioned that you will not be continuing as a Namesco customer you will most likely be moving the hosting to another provider, if and when this takes place you will need to contact Vodafone for any DNS changes to direct the service to another host.

Again please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you, and if you have any questions or encounter any difficulties please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards,
Eddie Rushforth
Technical Specialist"

I email back immediately to ask who and how to contact Vodafone on EITHER "DNS changes (whatever they are!) and email forwarding issues. I thought Demon had washed its hands of me atthe end of March 2015? No reply yet, of course.

BUT - and this is why I am posting tonight - I have just discovered that the Demon OWA webmail login thingy (which I have accessed as recently as this afternoon via http://help.demon.net/help-articles/outlook-web-access/) will not allow me in to manage my demon email on the server.

Anybody else had this problem?

I can still send/receive from/to mysubdonain.dcu email addresses using my mail program on my computer.

Totally confused.

Comments?

Thank you,

e-Granny (*very* not technical!)

PS BTW, I was a very longstanding Demon, ex-broadband, 'Dial-Loyalty' customer; for 22 years I had mysubdomain.dcu email & had a teesy ancient little www.mysubdomain.dcu website; BUT I haven't been paying any money to either Demon/Voda or NamesCo/Inty since March and don't intend to! Have new domain & hosting - elsewehere - for email & webpages. But would like to eke out use of & access to my 'free' (sic) mysubdomain.dcu email as long as possible.

In message <20150513.09...@twoplaces.co.uk>, Simon Turner
[]
In effect, I sort of threatened (all those years ago) to defect to
Freeserve.
Yes, I thought that was odd too!
Seems quite likely.
Thanks for that. I had a feeling it wasn't quite right. Also, IIRR the
data protection act now covers _all_ data, not just electronically-held,
so if they've got anything on vellum or parchment I'm still entitled ...

They're not making it easy: they're saying I must _write_ and ask.
Though as that was when I was still saying FOI, it _could_ be different
- but I doubt it.

Something I got from them today still had the "this has been added to
the notes on your account" text.
Well, if they'd sent to _anything_ @ soft255.demon.co.uk I'd have got
it, but as you say, maybe they haven't realised ...

However. I spoke to them (Nabiscuit) this morning, and got an
interesting piece of information: they had my email address as G6JPG,
which is correct, @ sos255, which isn't. And makes it fairly obvious
that some part of the transfer of data has been via voice transfer: I
didn't think they could have been any more incompetent, but that beggars
belief!
You may be right. Since I actually _use_ the ability to put anything I
like before the @ sign, I collect all such email (I don't get much spam
- between 0 and 30 or so a day, I'd say average about 8-10), but I'm
sure plenty of folks don't.
[]
Well, after clearing up the email address, I now _have_ heard from them
- and can see that they'd created earlier "tickets" (to use PlusNet's
term for something similar); worryingly, they'd been closed due to
inactivity. But anyway: I've now been into the famous control panel, got
the venerable WS_FTP working with my relocated website, etcetera. The
only thing showing as due is "hosting", 4.99/month due on 1 June; I've
put in a new ticket asking for clarification. After dire tales from here
about them never reading much, I numbered my points, and both started
and ended the ticket with "this enquiry contains six questions - I have
numbered them"; we'll see.
Indeed. With hindsight, they'd probably have had less trouble if they'd
migrated the various customer types separately.
)-:.
[]
OK, I'm hanging on by a thread, but got that: primary email plus
infinite aliases ...
... but now gone again. Not sure how that differs from one plus infinity
as above - other than maybe being able to set up ten different
forwardings.
No positive. I rang at 11:2x on 11 or 12 May to ask why Leif hadn't got
back. I got Harish Shivalingam, who wasn't too sympathetic (granted, I
wasn't being too nice by this point). I rang again at 9:11 "this" (13
May) morning, and got a heavily accented person; I asked her why I
hadn't heard back from Leif, and was told her boss Mr. Tanbir would call
back in an hour (~11:20). I rang again at about 11:45 to say the
obvious, and was told "after 1"; I rang again about 1:15 to say I had a
meeting at 1:30, so could they call later, and arranged that he'd
definitely call about 17:00. Of course, he didn't.
Nothing, as you can see. I must say that now Nabiscuit communication has
started to flow, and looks moderately hopeful, I've lost a lot of the
will to keep pursuing "Demon" (though I probably will pursue the
"subject access request", though not with urgency). Assuming, of course,
Nabiscuit turn out to be not as hopeless.
Yes, it seems to be a choice between: "Demon", moderately quick answer
but with a heavy accent (and unable to answer much), and: Nabisco, quite
cheerful and English-speaking, but up to 15 minutes' wait if you call in
the middle of the day.
If it jams - force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

In message <5iyUKNLj...@itsound.demon.co.uk>, Bill
<Billa...@gmail.com> writes
>Over a week ago I rang PlusNet about moving to FTTC with them with a
>permanent ip address. The person on the phone was very helpful and
>seemed knowledgeable and answered all my questions.
>That day I sent them an email via their website listing each point I
>had raised and asking for comfirmation of prices and how to proceed to
>FTTC with them asap after May 6th.
>
>I have had no reply.

I ought to report that I have now had an email reply from Plusnet. My
question was sent on the 27th April and the reply received on 13th May.
As I have said elsewhere, the May 6th date for FTTC provision was
changed on May 6th to June 3rd on the BT broadband checker.

The answer was sensible and to the point, but asked me for more
information (which I should really have included in my original
question).

Plusnet does give the impression of having advertised too much and thus
have a good but overworked support team. I do wish I hadn't seen yet
another advert in yesterday's newspaper!
--
Bill