Let’s start with the numbers. Across regions and operators, the gap between provisioned mailboxes and actual active customers is staggering:

• • Example 1: In 2025 this telco reported a provisioned mailbox count of 3.2 million.  Upon auditing the service, the activity logs revealed about 1 million accounts had accessed the service in the past few months. That’s nearly a 70% decline or 2 million dormant accounts maintained for no reason.
  • Example 2: In 2024 this telco renewed 1.8 million email and anti-abuse software licences for their on-premises consumer email service.  After working through an audit and migrating them to Atmail cloud, only 350,000 email accounts required licensing representing a reduction of over 80%, reflecting the true active customer base.
  • Example 3: In 2023 this telco had over 3.1 provisioned email accounts. During the first audit this number dropped to 1.3 million and then digging deeper to around 600,000 that were in use.  A 77% decline.

The roots of over-provisioning lie in the early days of internet adoption, when email was bundled as part of internet plans to drive stickiness and perceived value. Operators provisioned mailboxes for every subscriber, often maintaining these accounts indefinitely, even after customers moved on or stopped using the service.

The rise of global platforms such as Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo and iCloud led millions to abandon telco-provided email for alternatives offering better integration and user experience. Internal Atmail data shows that less than 30% of provisioned telco email accounts are accessed monthly, and less than 10% are used as a primary address.

This bloat impacts more than just licensing costs. It means:

• • Higher anti-abuse spend (licensing for inactive accounts)
  • Excessive data centre and storage overheads for dormant mailboxes
  • Unnecessary support and maintenance for legacy systems
  • Increased risk of abandoned accounts exploited for spam or fraud

Given the shrinking relevance and clear data on usage, divesting consumer email services, by migrating them to specialist cloud providers or sunsetting them is increasingly attractive for telcos leading to:

• • Cost savings via a massive reduction in licensing, infrastructure, and support costs.
  • Vastly improved security with far fewer abandoned accounts being available for abuse.
  • An increased opportunity to focus and invest in core connectivity and innovative products.

So, with compelling data why are telcos still sticking with it?  The number one concern stalling the decision to do something with legacy email service is perceived customer disruption and how that might lead to churn. Good news is, the data tells a reassuring story.  According to a recent research paper published by ABI Research titled THE CLOCK IS TICKING: WHAT’S NEXT FOR TELCO EMAIL
‘Telcos need to actively consider the future outcomes for their telco-branded consumer email services. While many customers get a default email address (or more), only a minority of their customers actively use their telco-branded email address and confer value on it.’

Summing up

The email market operated by telcos, ISP’s and carriers globally is drastically over-provisioned. Decades of bundling and inertia have left millions of dormant accounts, inflating costs and complexity. As recent migrations and internal Atmail data demonstrate, divesting these legacy services is not only feasible, it’s prudent. The impact on customers will be much smaller than imagined, freeing operators to focus on what matters most in an evolving digital landscape. Reach out if you have an email service you want evaluated before it is too late.

“We experienced no measurable customer churn when transferring our email service.”

Large European Telco

Learn more about how you can successfully exit your email service today.

The post Telco email is waaaaaay over provisioned. appeared first on Atmail.

As the digital world evolves, we see icons of the past gracefully bowing out. The recent news that AOL is finally shutting down its dial-up services marks the end of an era and serves as reminder of how quickly technology moves forward and how industries must adapt or risk being left behind.

For decades, AOL’s dial-up was synonymous with the early internet experience, connecting millions to a digital world that seemed full of limitless potential. But as broadband became the norm and customer expectations soared, dial-up faded into nostalgia. AOL’s decision to retire this once-revolutionary technology is not simply about closing a chapter. It’s a signal to other service providers: change is inevitable, and clinging to outdated services can hold your business back.

This resonates with telcos worldwide, many of whom still maintain legacy email platforms. Like dial-up, running in-house email services made perfect sense in the early days of mass connectivity. Email brought value, stickiness, and customer engagement. But times have changed. Today, maintaining email infrastructure is a costly, complex, and often thankless task. Security threats multiply, customer demands intensify, and the operational overhead eats away at resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

So, what should telcos do? The answer, we believe, is clear: it’s time to let go. Just as AOL is moving forward by shutting down dial-up, telcos should be looking to divest their email services, too.

Being an email provider to telcos and ISP’s globally we needed to look in the mirror ourselves and accept this inevitable shift. Today rather than being a seller of email services we are a buyer offering a clear well proven path those looking to gracefully exit their email service offering. By entrusting your email to a dedicated cloud expert, you can free your business from the burdens of outdated infrastructure. We manage the, complexity, compliance, security and importantly first line customer support.  It costs you nothing and lets you focus on what matters most: delivering next-generation connectivity and improved customer experiences. Divesting your email service isn’t just a sign of the times; it’s a proactive step toward a more agile, innovative future.

So what do dial up internet and telco email have in common?  They are both ready for retirement.

Ready to take the leap? Join the growing number of telcos who are leaving legacy email behind with Atmail for a smoother, smarter tomorrow.

The post What do dial up internet and telco email have in common? appeared first on Atmail.

Team Commitment and Growth
The team at Atmail has been instrumental in our success, and I’m proud of the personal and professional growth we’ve achieved together over the past (nearly) seven years. This acquisition is just the beginning of a promising journey where our dedicated team will continue to be the driving force behind our success.

Respecting the Vision
I extend to our team and our customers my sincere appreciation for the respect they have shown towards the vision that has guided Atmail’s success. The acquisition by Inbox.com aligns seamlessly with our commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, and look forward to the joint impact we will have on our industry .

Gratitude to the Outgoing Board
A heartfelt thank you to our outgoing board of directors, and in turn our shareholders, for their trust and support. Their guidance has been invaluable, and I am excited to continue this journey with the lessons learned and the strategic vision they have imparted.  I’ve learned a lot, and look forward to continuing to do so!

Navigating Challenges and Valuing Our Team
Through the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Atmail’s commitment to our team has been unwavering and this seems to have been returned 10-fold. Retaining all our staff during these times and supporting them during those tough times reflects our deep appreciation for their dedication and expertise. This has been my most personally gratifying experience with the company to date.

Anticipating the Future with Inbox.com
As we join forces with Inbox.com, I am genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead. This marks the beginning of a new chapter, and there is much more to achieve. Together, Atmail and Inbox.com will continue to innovate, pushing boundaries in providing cutting-edge email services.

I express gratitude to our exceptional team, partners, and loyal customers. The road ahead holds promise, and I am confident that the union of Atmail and Inbox.com will lead to even greater success and innovation in the email services sector.

Here’s to the next chapter, the challenges, the victories, and the limitless potential that lies ahead!

Excitedly,

Dave Richards
CEO, Atmail

The post Atmail’s Next Chapter: Embarking on a Thrilling Journey with Inbox.com appeared first on Atmail.

At Atmail, the security of our customers and employees is paramount. We firmly believe that trust is the foundation upon which strong relationships are built and maintained.

Obtaining the ISO 27001 certification is a significant accomplishment that requires a systematic and well-documented approach to safeguarding sensitive company and customer information. We protect intellectual property, employee and customer data, financial information, and data entrusted to us by third parties. This responsibility is one we take seriously, and we have worked diligently to meet and exceed the stringent requirements.

To ensure the highest level of security and compliance, we utilize the advanced Drata platform. This powerful tool allows us to continuously monitor our internal security controls, granting us real-time visibility across our entire organization. With Drata, we can confidently maintain the end-to-end security and compliance posture of our systems, providing you with peace of mind.

“Receiving the ISO 27001 certification is a major achievement for Atmail. It reinforces our commitment to information security and the trust our customers place in us. Whilst for some people a certification is a check box exercise, we at Atmail have analysed every requirement and looked for the intent behind it to ensure we can achieve and exceed the behaviour it is meant to establish” states Dirk Marski, Atmail’s Director of Technology and Governance.

Achieving this certification was made possible through an extensive audit conducted by Compass Assurance Services, our trusted audit firm. We are thrilled to share that Atmail passed this audit with flying colors. This certification verifies that we not only meet but also surpass the highest standards in establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continuously improving our information security management system (ISMS). It is a testament to our unwavering dedication to security and our ongoing efforts to enhance it.

In today’s digital landscape, where businesses and individuals increasingly rely on cloud-based services like ours to process sensitive and confidential data, ensuring data safety is of utmost importance. We understand the weight of this responsibility, and we approach data security and privacy with the utmost seriousness. When you choose Atmail as your cloud hosted email partner, you can rest assured that we share your commitment to protecting your valuable data.

For a more comprehensive understanding of our ISO 27001 certification and our robust security posture, we invite you to visit our data security page. There, you will find detailed information that satisfies your curiosity and you can even download a copy of Atmail’s ISO 27001 compliance certificate.

We are thrilled to add this achievement on our journey as we continue to enhance information our security, and we promise to deliver ever more secure and reliable experiences every step of the way.

The post Atmail Achieves ISO 27001 Certification, Reinforcing Commitment to Information Security appeared first on Atmail.

A recent internal post by Simone our Director of Service operations caught my attention. The image below highlights the efforts of continual improvement at all levels and shows how collaboration with one of our customers on the service outcomes is getting results.
The customer has been working closely with our service delivery team, meeting every month to measure what has occurred and then working together on a plan to make it better next month. If you don’t measure it you can’t improve it. These seemingly small changes over time start to take effect and hey presto we end up with a win/win. We receive fewer support tickets and the customer logs fewer support tickets. We are happier and the customer is happier.

Although not broken out in the graphic the 5 major categories we see drive support tickets are:
1. Anti-abuse – from simple spam through to sophisticated spear phishing attacks if you get the balance of technology and human interaction wrong, support tickets are sure to start flowing.
2. Passwords – from user instigated password resets and the use of multi-factor authentication through to the holy grail of going password-less ensuring passwords do their job effectively and efficiently is a tricky balance that once again if not correctly implemented leads to increased support tickets.
3. Devices – Unlike email of 30 years ago no longer do we live in a one device world. From mobiles to desktops and everything in between keeping up with changes in the various operating systems and how they interact with your email service is today a major contributor to support tickets. Whether it be the screen size, accessibility or simply a change in OS security, devices are certainly a hot topic on the help desk.
4. Reliability – When systems go offline you soon know how important it is. Email is one of those services that is ‘alive’ 24/7 and nothing will light up your support centre faster than an email outage. Preventing outages is obviously best, but having reliable and well tested processes to recover is the key to any good service.
5. Security – Let the bad guys take over one of your customers email accounts and it can be game over for their digital lives and your brand. With a duty of care implied and sometimes legislated ensuring the service is secure at all levels of the service is critical today.

Are you focused on the tech of running an email service or the service outcome your customers receive from your email service?

About the Author

Randall Cameron
Director, Global Sales and Marketing
A tech evangelist with over 20 years of enterprise IT sales and marketing experience in the telco sector, Randall leads the alignment of our global sales and marketing teams to ensure customers always come first.

The post Software or Service. SaaS needs both. appeared first on Atmail.

Well, I kind of got around to it in that blog post because I asked the then-current paradigm of artificial intelligence (AI), ChatGPT, to write the history for me. The AI program’s first stab at the task marked a barely passable start as a “history,” as it was about as light on historical detail as one could possibly get. Consider:

• Email was launched as electronic mail in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, who sent “QWERTYUIOP” as the first-ever email message;
• Our usage of email evolved; and
• someone developed the “dreaded” email signature.

All three points are valid, but they hardly add up to the complete history of email. ChatGPT’s efforts were far more focused on eliciting a laugh than nailing down history—50 or so words vaguely referencing email history out of about 370 words total. Perhaps my fault, given that I requested a “humorous blog” that would “make people laugh.” Nevertheless, if you tell your audience upfront that what you are writing is “hilarious” and firmly suggest that you will “laugh out loud,” you are clearly not confident about your comedic chops. Frankly, ChatGPT’s efforts were mildly amusing at best.

AI Capabilities Continue Their Rapid Advance

Since posting that blog a few short weeks ago, ChatGPT has quickly evolved through several iterations to become now the fourth version, GPT-4, which “surpasses ChatGPT in its advanced reasoning capabilities.” While there is little doubt that GPT-5 may soon drop, interest in the AI space has shifted to Google’s Bard, touted by the media as ChatGPT’s new rival.

Naturally, I wanted to see how much Version 4 may have improved and was also interested in checking out Bard’s capabilities. Unfortunately, Bard is not “currently supported in [my] country,” so that examination will have to wait. To give ChatGPT credit, its latest iteration crafted a bit more actual email history—including references to the development of attachments and emoticons—when I requested another email history blog from it. Still, it was another history puff piece, but likely my fault as I again asked GPT-4 to compose the blog with hilarity and laughs. And repeat, it provided readers with upfront notice promising that what they were about to read would be “hilarious” and “laugh-out-loud” funny.

Not!

Its efforts remained mildly amusing, but GPT-4 did seem to make more of an effort to be funny than it did in the work produced by Version 1 a month ago . . . so, I guess it’s learning.

And My Long—Awaited Admittedly Bland—Email History Blog

To further my experiment, I decided to omit the humour and see what sort of facts-only email history blog GPT-4 might produce. Here are the results:

“Email has become a ubiquitous and essential part of modern communication, allowing people to quickly and easily exchange messages across the globe. But have you ever wondered about the invention, history, and evolution of email? In this blog post, we will explore the fascinating story of email and how it has transformed the way we communicate.

The Invention of Email

Email was invented in 1971 by a computer engineer named Ray Tomlinson. At the time, Tomlinson was working on a government contract for ARPANET, the precursor to the internet. He was tasked with finding a way to send messages between computers on the network, and he came up with the idea of using the @ symbol to separate the user’s name from the name of their computer. This allowed messages to be routed to the correct destination.

The first email message Tomlinson sent was a test message to himself, which read “something like QWERTYUIOP.” He later described the experience as “not very profound.”

The Evolution of Email

At first, email was a relatively niche technology, used primarily by scientists and researchers. However, as the internet became more widely available in the 1990s, email quickly became a standard mode of communication for businesses and individuals alike.

One of the key developments that helped to popularize email was the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989. This made it easier for people to access email, as they could now do so through a graphical user interface rather than using command-line prompts.

Another important development was the rise of mobile devices, which made it possible to check and respond to email on the go. The first smartphone, IBM’s Simon, was introduced in 1993, but it was not until the release of the BlackBerry in 1999 that email on the go became a mainstream phenomenon.

Spam and Security Concerns

As email became more widely used, it also became a target for spammers and hackers. Spam, or unwanted and unsolicited email, has been a problem since the early days of email. In the early 2000s, spam filters were introduced to help users filter out unwanted messages.

Security concerns also emerged as email became more popular. Email is inherently insecure, as messages are sent in plaintext and can be intercepted by anyone with access to the network. To address this problem, email encryption technologies such as PGP and S/MIME were developed.

The Future of Email

Despite the rise of other communication technologies such as messaging apps and social media, email remains a vital part of modern communication. According to a 2021 survey by the Radicati Group, there are over 4 billion email users worldwide, and the number is expected to grow to over 4.6 billion by 2025.

As email continues to evolve, we can expect to see new features and innovations that will make it even more useful and convenient. For example, some email providers are experimenting with machine learning algorithms that can automatically sort and prioritize messages based on their content and importance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, email has come a long way since its invention in 1971. From a niche technology used by scientists and researchers to a ubiquitous mode of communication used by billions of people worldwide, email has transformed the way we communicate. Despite the challenges of spam and security, email remains an essential tool for businesses and individuals alike, and we can expect to see it continue to evolve and adapt to the changing needs of users in the years to come.”

Other than omitting attachments, emoticons, and a few other important details, not too shabby as a rather bland, bare-bones email history article, and I’m pleased to get that knocked off my to-do list even though GPT-4 did it for me.

What Other AI Thinks About ChatGPT’s Efforts

As part of my experimentation with this new technology, I plugged the above-referenced GPT-4-generated history articles into another AI-supported program, Grammarly, which checks writing for grammar and other composition quality benchmarks. Grammarly was not overly impressed, but it’s typically not impressed with most people’s writing, so GPT-4 is actually doing OK with its Shakespearean endeavours. In checking the humorous blog, Grammarly identified two grammatical mistakes and described the article’s clarity as “a bit unclear,” its engagement a “bit bland,” and the delivery “slightly off,” all of which warranted an overall score of 83. As I noted, this is not too bad, as about 75% of documents checked by Grammarly fail to top scores over 80.

And ChatGPT continues to learn, given that its comedy-free effort showed marked improvement with a score of 86, with Grammarly describing it as “very engaging” and having “just right” delivery. Clarity remained “a bit unclear,” and the program identified six potential grammatical mistakes, though I only agreed with two.

I should add that Grammarly also passed both versions for plagiarism, highlighting 2% and 4% within respective texts for possible plagiarism. This made me ponder on this: Based on ChatGPT’s capabilities and capacity for prodigious output, is it possible that it could generate so many different compositions for a specific subject that it would be impossible not to plagiarize text for that subject?

But What of Email’s Future?

ChatGPT is successfully demonstrating that AI works and is rapidly increasing its capabilities and capacity for learning. It is also evident that AI will play a significant role in the future of email. And by the future, we’re talking near-term.

Observant readers of Atmail’s blog will notice that I posted an article about email’s future in December. That article—“What the future of email looks like (and why we need to invest in it today)”—short-shrifted AI’s game-changing potential by only referencing it with a couple of sentences. While blinders undoubtedly played a role in that oversight, the warp-speed pace of AI advancements has only become noticeably apparent in the past few months.

Chat developer, OpenAI, and Google are just two of thousands of companies directly working to enhance AI capabilities and bring AI-powered tools to market. While ChatGPT is not open-source software, OpenAI provides developers with API access to use and integrate into their own applications, which they are . . . in droves. And like OpenAI and Google, many companies—such as Microsoft, Adobe, and companies that didn’t even exist a year ago—are putting AI to use in the email realm.

With a quick Google search, you can find dozens of AI-powered email writers. “Stop wasting your time writing emails when AI can do that for you in seconds for free!” is just one of many similar tag lines. Or how about “Sky rocket your cold emails with unique personalizations generated by AI?”—Kind of like having the mind of C-3PO of “Star Wars” fame serving as your personal secretary, eh?

Along with email generation, companies are finding ancillary uses for AI in generating and managing emails. Shortwave, for example, uses AI to organize inboxes and summarize individual email content into a few short sentences, so you don’t have to bother reading the whole thing. While the tool seems to be getting rave reviews from the media—like this one—the unanswered question for anyone using it is what happens if the summary inadvertently omits a crucial component of a time-sensitive email? You know, something like, “and make sure the signed contract is delivered by 5 p.m. or the $10 million deal is negated.”

Or consider Mailbutler, which offers ChatGPT-powered email summaries and:

• Email auto-responses
• Email composition via short keyword input
• To-do list creation based on email content
• Contact info search and management
• Email editing and improvement

Other companies provide AI tools designed to help people quickly find images, videos, links, and other relevant input to add to their email messaging. And all these already-in-use ancillary email tools mark just the beginning of email’s AI-powered future. It almost seems like we’ll get to a point where we won’t ever have to open our inbox or compose an email again—just let C-3PO handle it all!

Not So Fast on the Demise of Email….

Operational AI may be on the market and has begun transforming how we manage our written words and email, but there are still “ghosts in the machine.” ChatGPT and similar smart chatbots periodically generate inaccurate or irrelevant responses and sometimes even “hallucinate” information lacking in real-world reality. Thus, reviewing AI-generated content for accuracy remains essential. “But Shortwave told me the signed contract wasn’t due until 7 p.m.!”

Even if you eventually end up with a personal AI-powered C-3PO to manage all aspects of your email usage, you’re still going to need email. As noted in my December “future of email” article, email remains the world’s preeminent communications platform despite the abundance of multiple other communications portals with similar features. It is also emerging as the most effective form of online identification, which is becoming essential for conducting business in today’s digital world.

Transformative technologies such as AI often—but not always—prove disruptive because of how they upend existing technologies and ways of doing things. Steam power certainly proved disruptive to most elements of industry, but the internal combustion engine that followed proved less so. The widespread adoption of email portended the potential demise of snail mail and government-operated postal systems. Mail volumes may be somewhat down, yet snail-mail delivery continues to operate globally.

AI might be on the cusp of transforming how we manage and engage with email, but it won’t disrupt our use and need for email. Over 100 billion email messages are sent and received every day. AI might represent a change in how the messaging is produced and managed, but it won’t slow the flow. Even if managed by a C-3PO-type secretary, just about everyone needs to maintain an email presence in today’s digital world.

The post Further Contemplations on Email’s Future with a Nod to its History appeared first on Atmail.

In my attempts to amuse myself with ChatGPT I found the responses it generated well constructed given the small direction provided, but never found the result to be particularly compelling or really beyond what a 7th grader would put together given a day with a browser and their favourite search engine.  However, I was recently challenged by a friend over this notion, that I was perhaps seeing this technology the wrong way.  This friend argued that future tools like ChatGPT are not about providing deep intellectual insights, but really about doing the heavy lifting to get some structure and framework in place that a true expert can sprinkle their special magic over – my friend was using computer programming as an example, but could be equally applied to any other domain.  The tools are about efficiency, getting 80% to the goal, not about producing the perfect answer.

This sounds like something I could get onboard with, and would have to completely agree when we look at such tools through that lens.  So, I instructed ChatGPT to: “write a humorous blog post, about the invention, history and evolution of email that will make people laugh”.   So, here it is, 100% generated by ChatGPT, the blog post I wanted to write that I never got to because I always found the topic a bit bland.

Email. It’s the electronic equivalent of snail mail, and let’s face it, it’s way cooler. I mean, who wants to wait three to five business days for a letter when you can send an email and get a response in minutes? But have you ever wondered about the history and evolution of email? Well, get ready to laugh, because we’re about to take a hilarious journey through time.

It all started in 1971, when a man named Ray Tomlinson sent the first email. The message read “QWERTYUIOP,” which is apparently the first line of letters on a standard keyboard. Maybe he was trying to be cryptic, or maybe he just accidentally hit send while he was trying to come up with something more profound. Either way, he didn’t realize at the time that he was starting a revolution.

As email evolved, so did our use of it. At first, we used it for important things like work and keeping in touch with family. But then, something strange happened – we started using it for everything. We started sending emails to our friends about our weekend plans, to our coworkers about that weird smell in the break room, and to our exes about how much we miss them (not recommended, by the way).

And let’s not forget about the dreaded email signature. We all know that person who has a novel-length signature that includes their job title, contact information, and a quote from their favorite philosopher. It’s like they’re trying to make up for something – maybe a lack of personality?

But despite all its quirks, email is still an important tool. It’s how we communicate with people from all over the world, how we send important documents, and how we keep our inbox cluttered with spam. And let’s not forget the joy of the occasional cat meme.

So there you have it – the history and evolution of email. From QWERTYUIOP to the dreaded email signature, email has come a long way. It’s a tool that has brought us closer together and also made us question our own sanity. But hey, if you’re still not laughing, maybe it’s time to check your spam folder. Who knows what treasures await you there?

It came very close.  I think we can all agree that this is an excellent start to such an article, and would be even better once a little bit of expert knowledge and experience was applied to the factual components (which I haven’t attempted to do by the way).

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed creating it – I was amazed at the variety of answers that ChatGPT produced for the same sentence, or with very slight variations.  So, should i write all articles with ChatGPT in the future, attempt to spread a little expertise into them and claim them as my own?  I wasn’t sure, so, of course, I asked ChatGPT – this is what it said:

As an AI language model, I am designed to generate text based on the prompts I receive. While I try to provide informative and engaging responses, the text I generate is not original thought in the sense that it comes from a human author with their own unique perspective and experiences.

Therefore, if you decide to use text generated by ChatGPT, it is important to properly attribute the source and clarify that the content was generated with the help of an AI language model. This is especially important if you plan to use the content for commercial purposes or if you are using it in a way that could be misconstrued as plagiarism.

Additionally, while I am programmed to provide accurate and informative responses, I am still a machine and may not always be able to provide the most nuanced or contextually-appropriate responses. So, if you plan to use my generated text, it is important to review and edit it to make sure it aligns with your intended message and tone.

The world is about to get very interesting!!

…and to my friend about coding with ChatGPT, I think this is one of the best videos I could find on the topic:

The post ChatGPT and the History of Email appeared first on Atmail.

The TL;DR:

Despite AWS data sovereignty headlines, and evolving data privacy legislation, Atmail’s global footprint provides adequate sovereignty for existing customers.

Telcos and Internet Service Providers who are focused on “costs” and do not actively maintain and modernise their email service continue to see a decline in usage and will explore exiting the service. This “cost mindset” directly contrasts the reality – that email continues to provide Telcos with revenue opportunities within the consumer market. AT&T’s partnership with Yahoo! to offer ad-supported and ad-free, but paid, email services is a simple example of a modern business model that works in the consumer market.

The arrival of decentralised email services, and the potential legal precedents that the NRC’s legal case could set against Google, are interesting market developments to monitor.

Microsoft’s move to drop support for custom domains for outlook.com customers is bold. Even more so when contrasted against Apple’s vaunted iCloud+ offering and Google bowing to customer feedback and reverting plans to make legacy G Suite customers pay for this functionality. Atmail’s family domain functionality aligns with market momentum, making this decision from Outlook one of interest to monitor.

General Interest Tech News

• Amazon AWS acknowledge that they are behind Google and Microsoft in sovereign cloud – offering a pledge to offer the most advanced sovereignty controls and features available in cloud services. (Read more)
• In November, Google reached a $392M settlement with 40 US states for breaching location tracking regulations. Meta has been fined $275M for breaching GDPR. (Read more)

Industry News

• ATC Broadband to end its email service in March 2023. (Read more)
• The Republican National Committee will sue Google, alleging the company has been suppressing email solicitations ahead of the November mid-term elections. (Read more)
• Avanan release a study that claims attackers are designing email phishing attacks to bypass Microsoft anti-abuse services, and they are winning. (Read more)
• AT&T partner with Yahoo! to offer an ad-supported email service. Removing advertisements requires a $5 per month subscription. (Read more)
• Hargray Communications to end its email service with the first round of account deletions scheduled for December 15th. (Read more)
• Microsoft announce their intention to discontinue support for adding and using custom domain names with Outlook.com. Existing custom domains will continue to function. (Read more)
• Fjordmail enforce subscription for webmail.co.za (Read more)
• Zoom’s email and calendaring services will allow users to integrate with existing Microsoft or Google accounts, or use Zoom backend services. Ensuring users can collaborate holistically from within the one app. (Read more)
• With the goal of decentralising email, three former bank employees have developed Telios – a privacy-focused web3 email service built on the Hypercore Protocol for peer-to-peer communication. (Read more)
• At the time of writing, Rackspace’s Exchange Online service has been down for five days and counting… (Read more)

Synacor Zimbra

• Zimbra release a partner-exclusive desktop mail client “Zimbra Desktop Modern” with offline capability. (Read more)
• Zimbra release support for Thales’ SafeNet Trusted Access (SSO). (Read more)

Synchronoss

• Synchronoss announce an unnamed leading global operator has signed a multi-year deal for Personal Cloud files to securely store video, and other digital content. (Read more)
• Synchronoss announce increased adoption of Verizon’s Next Generation Private Cloud Infrastructure. (Read more)
• Synchronoss report 3rd quarter financial results. In comparison to Q3 2021:
  • Messaging revenue was down 4.6%.
  • Total revenue was down 14%.
  • Gross profit decreased 12%.
  • Adjusted EBITDA decreased 7%.
  • Net loss improved to $(1.3)M. ($0.01) per share. (Read more)

Open-Xchange

• OX partners with Bigdomain and DotAsia to provide secure email and collaboration tools for Malaysia. (Read more)
• OX partners with MailChannels to integrate their anti-abuse technology within OX Cloud. (Read more)

Atmail

• During December, Atmail have shipped multiple features and service improvements, including:
  • A new interface that fully meets WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA guidelines
  • App-specific password functionality
  • Multiple technology stack upgrades
• We are targeting the following feature releases in the coming weeks:
  • Import and export of contacts via .csv (early February)
  • Enhanced password policy controls to regulate password re-use (early March)
  • Maintenance Page – allows you to control access to webmail during defined maintenance periods. (Feb/Mar)
  • Email Broadcast – allows you to send notification emails to all users on your webmail domain. (Feb/Mar)

If you would like to discuss any of the above further, or if you have any other queries, then please contact me.

The post Market View: December appeared first on Atmail.

With a maximum data transfer speed of 56 Kb/s and other limitations such as “noise” and tying up phone lines, dial-up Internet service was likely doomed from the get-go. But it proved instrumental in ushering in the Internet age and gave innovative companies time to develop more efficient and faster access technologies, such as DSL (digital subscriber line) and assorted forms of broadband. Dial-up’s 56 Kb/s speed certainly seems quaint today compared to blistering fast broadband speeds reaching up to 10,000 Mb/s (10 Gb/s).

There have been plenty of other changes in the ISP market over the past three decades, but rather than focusing on the past, there is more value in examining the present to discern what this might mean for the future. That is, what is the current state of the ISP market, and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead?

Overall, The Future Looks Bright

If market forecasts are reliable, the future looks bright, according to assorted market analyses. An October 13^th report “Global Internet Service Industry Research Report, Growth Trends and Competitive Analysis 2022-2028” estimates that the global Internet service market will experience a 4.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between now and 2028. The report estimates that the current US $498.6 billion market will increase to US $644.8 billion by 2028. A report from Grand View Research is even more optimistic, predicting a 9.6% CAGR between now and 2030, and estimates the global market will hit US $875.1 billion by 2030.

Thus, if you’re responsible for helping navigate the success of your telco or other ISP, you can pretty much sit back and watch the cash flow into the company coffers, right?

Beware the Competition?

Well, not exactly. Your ISP company’s potential share of that forecasted market growth will likely face challenges from at least one other ISP.  If you’re in America, almost 2,900 broadband ISPs are vying for those Internet user dollars, not to mention a few remaining dial-up providers. According to a recent report from ACA Connects, “fixed broadband competition is thriving in the United States and will become only more intense in the near future.” Using FCC (Federal Communications Commission) data, the ISP-centric association forecasts that by the end of 2025, 95% of U.S. households will have access to at least one broadband ISP offering a minimum 25 Mb/s speed and at least one additional provider offering 100 Mb/s. Additionally, the group predicts that 74% of households will have access to at least two ISPs offering a minimum 100 Mb/s service and almost 25% to three providers offering the 100 Mb/s minimum.

The ability to deliver speed and bandwidth has driven ISP success for decades. A successful ISP of any size must be able to secure, market, and provide a range of speed and bandwidth options that meet all their customers’ needs. All indications suggest that customer demand for greater speed and bandwidth will continue. However, this will likely be a far bigger competitive battle going forward with wireless broadband rather than fixed.

Lower Margins Drive Alternate Revenue Streams

Speed isn’t the only factor that will remain important going forward. Many who helped establish the early ISPs recognised the potential for securing revenues beyond Internet access provision. The telecom and cable companies quickly realised they could earn money from selling their access and bandwidth to smaller ISPs. As the Internet expanded, and its technical capabilities evolved, ISPs started offering website hosting services, domain name registration, email services, and colocation. Some early providers tried to become a one-stop shop for everything on the Internet, with AOL serving as a prime example.

Today’s competition will likely lead to continued pressure on margins for Internet connection, which means that ISPs need to further seek out supplemental revenue streams. Additionally, communications and Internet technology continue to evolve rapidly. Failure to keep up with this evolution could threaten your ISP and any auxiliary services it supplies with eventual obsolescence.

With both of these thoughts in mind, ISP managers should keep close track of the following issues, which represent potential challenges as well as opportunities:

• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Cloud computing
• Edge computing
• Cybersecurity
• Advertising
• Wireless Internet
• Artificial intelligence
• Personalization
• Regulatory initiatives

The tier-one providers undoubtedly have this all covered (we like to think anyway!). They possess the resources to surmount any emerging challenges and quickly adopt new and evolving technologies and trends to expand their revenue streams. However, the tier-one and even many tier-two ISPs are too big to maximise the potential. Their immense size makes it difficult for them to provide decent customer service. Along with regulatory factors, this allows smaller ISPs to continue to flourish despite such Goliath-sized competition.

Email Offers A Renewed Opportunity

Long offered by telcos and other ISPs as a supplemental service to Internet access, email service has changed little over the past few decades. In the early days of the Internet, telcos offered email as a free supplement to Internet service. This trend was adopted by cable companies and other ISPs, marking the height of what is known as the first wave of email. When independent web-based providers such as Yahoo and Google emerged as part of the second wave of email, they, too, essentially offered the service free but looked to capitalise on the data contained therein.

Since then, none of the ISPs ever figured out how to effectively monetise their email account holders. Even Google, with almost two billion Gmail account holders, only makes direct email income from about 1% of them, and still relies on data and advertising – very crude!

Think about it, email services offered by ISPs have long been:

• Mostly provided for free.
• Typically offered under a one-size fits all approach.
• Lacking innovation in expanding customer experience.
• Considered a cost of providing Internet service.
• Predominantly managed on-premises.
• Stresses loyalty and ‘stickiness’ instead of direct proftiability.

We Suggest That You Cleverly Commercialise Email

With more than 20 years of experience helping telcos and service providers manage their email platforms, we have figured out how to monetise email services effectively. We believe we’re on the cusp of the third wave of email services marked by digital transformation and more focus on trying to commercialise the service.

We already know how to commercialise the service and can help providers earn email income from four different streams:

• Purchase integration
• Promotion of provider services, partner services, and cross-selling
• Personalisation
• Security and privacy

Those Who Need Lots of Email Storage Should Pay For It

An example of Purchase integration is Storage. An easy one because the overall customer base has become used to the need to pay for storage. Currently, when a customer runs low on email storage space, many providers will tell them to delete emails rather than offer them more storage for a price. Research suggests that one out of five customers use a lot of storage compared to the average email account, while one out of 20 uses a tremendous amount. These customers should be charged for that extra storage use.  We suggest that providers set storage thresholds that trip reasonable fees when exceeded. The service should be streamlined with in-app and email notifications, integrated with one-click billing.

Promote Your Other Services on Your Platform 

You can create space on your email platform for a promotion zone that promotes all of your other services, partner promotions, and cross-selling. Going forward, customer data integration efforts can increase the potential returns from this promotion. Also, you can provide customers with the option to turn this feature off for a small fee (of course).

We can show you that you get, on average, 34 minutes a day of customers interacting with your brand through the email service – if you’re not speaking to them, then someone else is – what do you want to say?

Let Customers Personalise Their Email with Domain Names

Personalisation is becoming ever more critical on the Internet, with customers increasingly wanting to own and use their domain name for their email. According to one study, some Generation Z parents reject baby names when they find out that the name has already been claimed as a domain. Offering white-label domain name service to your email customers could generate significant revenues in the years ahead.

Offer Security and Privacy for a Small Fee

About 84% of email users say they care about privacy, but only around 11% to 38% say they are willing to pay for it depending on the location of email accounts. If you make security and privacy easy and affordable, more will undoubtedly be willing to pay for it. As a provider, you’re already responsible for reducing data loss risks and meeting regulatory compliance in managing customer data. Why not lean into the obligation and get your customers to help pay for it? You can bundle anti-malware, anti-virus, and anti-spam features in a package and provide it to your email users for a dollar or so a month.

Consult with Atmail for More Info on Clever Email Commercialisation

Initiating clever commercialisation for your ISP will face some challenges, but telecoms and other providers already have some advantages. Most have established trust with their customers and have proven their ability to provide them with effective support when needed. Billing is already in place for Internet access and perhaps some other services, but you will need to integrate these new email services onto the billing platform, which will likely be a challenge. You will also want to implement one-click billing for these email services.

We can help with some other challenges. By taking email services to the cloud, you can scale up or down as needed. Combining cloud capabilities with our multi-tenant email platform will allow you to segment and personalise services for your customers.

For more details on clever commercialisation, we invite you to review one of our recent presentations here or get in touch.

The post State of the Internet Service Provider Market – Challenges and Opportunities appeared first on Atmail.

It certainly is where we have most of our business communication, but that’s just the beginning.

Email is also where we store our digital tokens of life.  We store our holiday itineraries, boarding passes, concert tickets, the receipt and warranty for the laptop we bought years ago, and sometimes even photos of families and friends so that we don’t misplace them.

Communication within workplaces has evolved significantly, and sure, we now have multiple platforms available. WhatsApp, Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Deel, Asana, Trello, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, LinkedIn… they all do the same thing: help us communicate. But even then, there’s a need to collate those notifications from various apps in one place, and the email inbox is what does that.

When people ask him if he’s out to “kill email,” the CEO of Slack, Stewart Butterfield, admits he’s not – his vision, rather, is to create an “improvisational jam session with the whole world.”

Email isn’t going anywhere. Decades after its advent, it remains the unchallenged form of formal communication. Data shows that on average, we receive 121 emails every day, and spend 28% of our workweek managing email. And of the 5 billion people worldwide who use the internet, 4 billion (or half the human population) are email users.

Email has been around for 30 years. It isn’t dead. It isn’t going to die. That’s not to say there aren’t serious challenges (and correspondingly, significant opportunities) to take the email service to the next level.

The future of email can be very promising if we can get on the right side of the wave of change. For starters, there’s too much email to keep on top of. 80% of the emails sent today aren’t coming from a person, but are either spam, receipts, notifications, newsletters, or something else. Customer data is a sellable commodity, and ad targeting via email has become commonplace for major email services. 84% people say they are concerned about data privacy, security, and digital identity. GoDaddy reports that 1 in 5 millennials select their baby’s names after checking available domain names; it seems many of us want but are unable to get personal domain names online.

What does the fast-approaching future of email look like?

The first two decades of email saw carriers, and subsequently independent players (Yahoo, Hotmail / Outlook, Gmail) dominate the landscape. Here are 9 observations on what the next decade could bring, and the opportunities we see for carriers.

1. Tailored, chargeable storage solutions – Many consumers are now prepared to pay for account upgrades, and storage is probably at the head of that list. Email can be made profitable in a way that benefits service providers and consumers alike. Currently, most telco and internet service provider email services are free, with a standard one-size-fits-all approach. Such providers stand to gain from establishing more control and improving their services. Setting a range of offerings with the right storage thresholds and pricing (based on how many and how much consumers will likely pay), supported by one click billing integration, can help turn email into a paid, premium offering.

2. ‘Personalized’ spam – According to some experts, the future of email entails completely automated, personalized messages based on analysis of consumer data (made possible by AI). Dynamic, segmented marketing emails have been found to get a 22% higher ROI. No more hitting ‘send’ to the masses, or vice-versa, receiving irrelevant email blasts. Protect your users, and they will be willing to pay for the service – their identity is becoming valued. 

3. Richer content – We can expect to see better storytelling and more user-generated content in emails in order to make them more engaging. Emails are likely to become more visual / animated and interactive (with features such as surveys or commenting options). They will become more engaging, and users will be expected to be engaged!  But more importantly, they want to be engaged with content that makes sense to them, not some generic ‘catch all’.

4. More cross channel integration and smarter promotion – Today, advertising takes up valuable real estate on an email service. Internet service providers who take their customer data integration seriously can raise the bar for their promotions. Instead of placing generic ads, this space can be used for smarter partner promotions and cross sells, based on what would be helpful for the consumer. Paid removal can be another premium feature that some consumers might be willing to subscribe to, and that email service providers can benefit from.  What’s worth more to you, getting a few cents from someone viewing and ad from a generic online advertiser, or rather selling a bunch of new handsets or wifi routers?

5. More regulation on consumer data privacy – Ultimately, we as consumers should get to decide what details about ourselves businesses can and cannot access – and this does not need to spell the end of email marketing. Europe’s privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is addressing customer concerns over data privacy, and the ePrivacy Regulation proposal aims to further reinforce trust and security, particularly in electronic communication-related privacy. Contrary to the expected negative impact from increasing regulation, 76% marketers have cited an increase in email open rates after the implementation of the GDPR.  How are you positioned to comply with all the new regulations?

6. More encryption, more security, more authentication – End to end encryption technology might be currently difficult and scarcely applied, but is likely to add to email inbox security in the future. It’s entirely possible that passwords will become a thing of the past with biometric security and device-based authentication. Secure, private email is beginning to garner both consumer popularity and business success.

7. Intelligent / AI-assisted email – Gmail began helping us write emails with spell check, and now makes up sentences for the whole email body. Other AI writers on the market, such as 2-year-old Flowrite, turn bullet points into ready-to-send emails, for ~$10 a month.

8. Digital identity – Web3 is grounded in authentic expression, and our reliance on digital identity will increase in the years to come. Even today, most internet transactions require validation of personal identity via an email ID, and email could evolve into a type of digital social security ID. Personal domain names have a lot of potential. 2 million Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain names have already been registered. Even without going into the blockchain-based iteration of the web, the demand for domains does not seem to be subsiding. In just one month in 2021, GoDaddy registered more domains than it had ever done before. Email service providers can benefit from thinking long term and bundling in family name or personal name domain offerings for their consumers.

9. Better UX – Lastly, we’re likely to see better designs in email interfaces in the future. Providers could work more in tandem with builders and editors on design options or editing software such as ‘What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get’ programs for email templates.

Conclusion

We have seen email adapt and evolve since the time Raymond Tomlinson put the “@” and send himself a test email that read “QWERTYIOP,” to the first email sent with an attachment in 1992, to emails on Blackberrys in 2003, to 145 billion spam messages sent daily last year.

As our needs and expectations as consumers evolve, businesses that aggressively change the way they think about email have a lot to gain; the near future will see the email possibly transition from an expense to a profit avenue, from generic to personalized, from mundane to intelligent, from static to engaging, from public to private, and from free to premium.

The post What the future of email looks like (and why we need to invest in it today) appeared first on Atmail.