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On the 11th day of Christmas TalkTalk took from me... the email address of my company

Legacy Business accounts to be axed from 4 January 2021

There is an early Christmas present for customers of TalkTalk Business as the company prepares to swing the axe on a legacy email service.

Users of talktalkbusiness.net have received notification that TalkTalk intends to shut down email services for the domain. As of 4 January 2021, email addresses for the domain will simply cease to exist.

It's all very on point for 2020.

The email of doom starts cheerily enough: "TalkTalk Business is always working to deliver the best possible service for our customers."

Sadly, however, the best possible service appears to be no service at all as the company continued: "We are ceasing our legacy email domain servers, which will affect all emails with the following domain: XXXXX@talktalkbusiness.net."

Things then got bleaker: "This means that this email address will no longer exist or be usable from 4th January 2021. We do not intend to provide a replacement mail service."

In true Scrooge style, TalkTalk has no solace for customers facing a Christmas of urgent migration. As of the fourth, there will be no inbound email and outbound mail is likely to be borked as well.

The solution? "Sign up to an email service that is independent of TalkTalk Business (e.g. Gmail, Outlook.com, 1&1)" or register a domain and roll your own.

TalkTalk has been desperately trying to kill off its legacy email services – 2019 saw warnings issued to holders of Tiscali email addresses and former OneTel customers were treated to a forced upgrade to TalkTalk Mail or else.

Register reader Rupert Walker told us that the notification was the first his customer (a 15-year veteran of the service in all its different guises) had received.

"Yes," he said, "we can get the systems sorted and a change of email in place before the 4th Jan but no chance of updating the accounts of all the contacts and businesses that use them."

The latter is a serious concern since those with the old email address will find their messages undeliverable once the plug is pulled.

"I just can't believe for a business service they think just over 1 month is enough notice," Walker remarked.

TalkTalk Business is by no means the only show in town when it comes to killing off legacy domains. The Demon subdomain wheezed its last earlier this year, although the cut-off was extended following an outcry at the short notice.

Updating contacts that might have been using the same address for over a decade is, after all, never easy.

The Register contacted TalkTalk regarding the axing and deadline, but we have yet to receive an explanation. ®

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