MANITOULIN—Mindemoya resident Jan McQuay is alerting Island residents and Eastlink customers that their amtelecom.net email accounts will disappear after June 30.
“I think this is big news that everyone on Manitoulin Island should know about,” she said. “I’ve been telling my friends but apparently there are people who are unaware that all their emails will be lost as of June 30 unless they forward them to a new email address. It’s very poor service. I don’t know how many people and businesses are affected but I’m sure it’s a lot.”
Frank, a representative of Eastlink Customer Care services confirmed last week, “I do know we are retiring a lot of very old emails. Some are very old, from companies we had purchased previously. Only email customers are going to be affected.
According to the Eastlink spokesperson, the email accounts that will be affected include amtelecom.net, personacanserveyou.ca, cabletv.ca, cyberbeach.net, gorebaycable.net, lynx.ca, markdalecable.com, persona.ca, personainternet.com, and xcelco.on.ca. These accounts are “antiquated” and couldn’t be maintained.
The eastlink.ca email accounts will not be affected.
“We just can’t maintain the old services anymore,” said Frank. “A decision has been made that we are not creating a new Eastlink internet service link (to the old services).”
“They said everyone should have got a notice, but I didn’t get anything directly from the company,” said Ms. McQuay. “I don’t know if anyone has received direct notification about their email.”
She said she first heard that Eastlink was shutting down the email accounts at the end of April but that was extended to May and now the end of June.
Eastlink said they began notifying customers in October 2022. “Yes, thousands of customers will be affected,” agreed Frank. “That is why for the past six months we have been encouraging people to get ready. We put messages in customer bills warning them for six months. As of right now, account emails will be deleted as of June 30. Once they are gone, they are gone.”
He said Eastlink has been encouraging customers to create a new email and forward their old emails to it. “By all means, if people are struggling to figure out how they can save the emails that they have sent or received, we encourage them to go through our technical support people.”
“We brought fibreoptic in to Mindemoya,” said the Eastlink rep. The cable network is still being built and will be driven by internet customers. “Cable upgrades are being done, so if (customers) want fibre and cable, stay tuned.”
Government is funding 2,500 kilometres of new fibreoptic network in Ontario and these are massive projects, he said. Eastlink is privately run by the Bragg family and focuses on rural areas that need the service. “Stay tuned: there are more things coming to Ontario from Eastlink.”
