Real people, on-site in Ireland.
Real people, on-site in Ireland.
If your business still uses an @eircom.net address, the safest fix is email on your own domain, set up and tested before you let the old address go. Eir announced a charge for eircom.net email in 2020, and in 2022 the Irish Times reported that it had deleted some customers' mail in error, so having your business identity tied to an address you do not control is a risk you can remove. Here is how to move, in a sensible order.
Reported facts, with dates: TheJournal.ie reported on 4 February 2020 that eir planned a €5.99 monthly charge for eircom.net email, affecting individuals, businesses, schools and voluntary organisations. Accounts would be restricted after two months for non-payment, and eir's statement said the service stops after 60 days with the account permanently deleted after that. The Irish Times later reported that eircom.net addresses had been free for almost 20 years and that by 2022 some users were paying up to €9.99 a month.
In December 2022 the Irish Times reported that emails older than 45 days had been deleted in error for about 4% of eir's email users and could not be recovered. Eir attributed it to an IT issue during a data migration, apologised and said it would compensate affected customers. Eir's current price and terms may differ from these reports, so check eir's own webmail support page before deciding anything.
A business address on a domain you own, such as name@yourcompany.ie, does not depend on any broadband provider. If you change supplier, the address travels with the domain. Blacknight made the same point in a 2020 post on this very change: free or provider-tied email gives a third party control over the accounts and logins that depend on it, including banking and domain or hosting accounts.
Our guide to professional email for small business covers what to look for, and business email hosting compares the options.
Do not close the eircom.net account first. Follow this order.
Your options are a hosting plan with email included, a dedicated email product, or Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. HostBible's professional email gives you mailboxes on your own domain with IMAP, POP3 and webmail and spam protection. The difference between protocols matters for copying mail, see IMAP versus POP3.
If you do not yet own a domain, you will need one. Our guide to how to register a domain covers that, and the choice of extension is discussed in .ie versus .com.
Old addresses collect more than messages. Before you let eircom.net go, search the mailbox for the services that send to it: your bank, utilities, accountant, supplier portals, social accounts, and the registrar and hosting accounts for your website. Each one needs the new address, and a password reset sent to a dead mailbox is how people get locked out.
A useful trick is to search the old inbox for the words "password", "account" and "invoice" over the last year. The senders that come up are your list.
A new domain's mail can land in spam if it lacks authentication records. Add SPF, DKIM and DMARC as your provider instructs, which our guide to SPF, DKIM and DMARC explains in plain terms. Check them before you send a mass announcement of the new address.
Keep the eircom.net address for a transition period, as Blacknight's 2020 advice suggested, around 60 to 90 days, and watch it for stragglers. This is general information, and you should check current terms with eir for your own account.
HostBible's free migration with a hosting plan covers email accounts, and its professional email runs on your own domain.
See website and email migration