Outages delay Mail.com service
As Mail.com accounts are transferred to telephony pioneer Net2Phone, some customers experience outages.
Interruptions of the free, Web-based service have been reported since March as EasyLink transfers its 5 million personal e-mail accounts to Net2Phone, according to Bill Fallon, vice president of EasyLink Services. He said the transfer is expected to be completed in July.
"We're aware there have been some interruptions of service for customers, and such interruptions are not unusual in light of such a large scale migration," Fallon said. "We've provided information in conjunction with Net2Phone to customers to keep them apprised of the migration project as it could temporarily affect their service."
Mail.com's outages are the latest in a string of problems besetting Web-based e-mail services. In December, for instance, members of Microsoft's Hotmail were shut out of their e-mail accounts for several days because of system upgrades.
EasyLink posted a notice on its Web site saying that the service is being upgraded. The notice said the companies are moving all e-mail messages as well as address book entries, and some members may experience a delay in viewing their messages, depending on the size of their mailbox.
The notice also said people may experience delayed delivery of new e-mail because of heavy traffic though the systems.
Net2Phone purchased Mail.com's personal e-mail service March 30. Mail.com changed its name to EasyLink Services following the sale of that division.
Net2Phone could not be immediately reached for comment.