Email system provision is unregulated in the UK.

vofs007

securityguy wrote: »

Fix line telecoms and postal services have a universal service obligation, which is one of the main things OFCOM regulate.

TV, radio and mobile phones require use of a public asset, the bandwidth in the wireless spectrum, in exchange for which they accept regulation.

Email does none of these things. Most of the operators are outside the UK (indeed, is there a free or low-cost email service that is in the UK?), don't have a USO, don't use public assets. Regulating service would be a massive brake on innovation, while being entirely pointless in protecting customers.

I suspect that the USO came about because of regulation and see no reason why the email because of it's importance should not have one also.

What email system does not use a public asset ?

I see no reason why regulation should be a massive brake on innovation except in the case of scams and sharp practice.

I would like to see your justification that it would be entirely pointless in protecting customers.

I find your opposition to regulation puzzling. Do you work for an ISP ?

InsideInsurance

ISPs provide a tiny proportion of email, the majority of people use the likes of GMail.

Regulation requires innovation/ changes to be approved by the regulator. Any quasi governmental agency always works at the speed of set custard. It requires you to become licensed, which is a time consuming and expensive process. Requires realms of documentation and evidence to demonstrate you have considered all possibilities etc

Unregulated, put something up as a beta, it works you develop it on, it doesnt work then you withdraw the service. You simply cannot do this in the regulated space.

And before any more silly type comments, I work in financial services and know the fun of being a regulated industry but never worked for an ISP

vofs007

esuhl wrote: »

Another thing that is completely unregulated is communication between two tin cans and a piece of string.

If we're looking at regulating email, where customers can freely negotiate appropriate SLA terms and service charges, and where there is ample competition from many different providers, and where an individual user could quite easily set up their own email servers... Why not regulate every form of communication...?

After all, with two tin cans and a piece of string, you're completely locked-in to using the same service provider, and even the distance of telecommunication is precisely fixed, requiring a new line to relay messages to different locations.

Am I the only one to recognise the menace to free society that is exemplified by our laissez-faire tin-can-telephone laws?! There's no point trying to fix the email system until we've got the basics right!

"
If we're looking at regulating email, where customers can freely negotiate appropriate SLA terms and service charges, and where there is ample competition from many different providers, and where an individual user could quite easily set up their own email servers... Why not regulate every form of communication...?"

Can you please point us in the direction of any UK based ISP where you can freely negotiate appropriate email SLA terms and service charges ? This is impractical for joe public and why we need OFCOM intervention to protect our interests.

I fail to detect ample competition but only universal mediocrity in service provision on a take it or leave it basis.

Most universal forms of communication are regulated and it is only a matter of time before email is also.

esuhl

vofs007 wrote: »

Can you please point us in the direction of any UK based ISP where you can freely negotiate appropriate email SLA terms and service charges ? This is impractical for joe public and why we need OFCOM intervention to protect our interests.

I fail to detect ample competition but only universal mediocrity in service provision on a take it or leave it basis.

If you really wanted you, you could pay for an email service with negotiable terms here: http://www.magnolia-cms.com/product/pricing.html

But why would you want to pay so much for a personal email account?! If personal email is that important to you, get your own domain so you can redirect it to whichever provider you want, and use an email client to download your emails locally. Or set up your own email server.

In almost 20 years of using free email accounts, only one company has repeatedly caused me problems. So I just switched to another provider. There must be hundreds to choose from. Other than that I've never had any problems.

vofs007 wrote: »

Most universal forms of communication are regulated and it is only a matter of time before email is also.

What regulation do you want? What terms should be required by statute?

And what is the problem you're trying to address? Can't you just move to a more reliable provider?

I can see how ISP regulation is needed. Many subscribers are tied-in to a minimum-term contract and it's not so easy to just switch to a new one. But email regulation is unnecessary and will just drive up costs. Free providers may start charging or showing adverts (or increasing the number shown).

securityguy

vofs007 wrote: »

"

Can you please point us in the direction of any UK based ISP where you can freely negotiate appropriate email SLA terms and service charges ?

Google will sell you an SLA for Gmail.

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html

Any business which outsources its IT will have a detailed contract, with an SLA and LDs included, and that will be negotiated as part of the the contract process. Most consumers aren't wiling to pay, which is why they don't have an SLA for their phone, broadband, mobile phone or whatever.

"I fail to detect ample competition but only universal mediocrity in service provision on a take it or leave it basis."

So start such a service and see how many people beat a path to your door. Running an email service is hardly difficult (like most geeks, I run my own for my family and friends on a rented server) so you shouldn't have any difficulty getting it running.

vofs007

InsideInsurance wrote: »

ISPs provide a tiny proportion of email, the majority of people use the likes of GMail.

I think you need to justify this statement.
Statistics are hard to come by but Google users (depending how you measure them) are around 500 Million worldwide. UK Google users lets guess at 10 Million (No doubt some one will correct that figure). BT email accounts (mostly UK based) are probably around 10 million also or at least not a tiny proportion.
To make the point I have ignored Yahoo, Microsoft etc and other UK ISPs.

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Regulation requires innovation/ changes to be approved by the regulator. Any quasi governmental agency always works at the speed of set custard. It requires you to become licensed, which is a time consuming and expensive process. Requires realms of documentation and evidence to demonstrate you have considered all possibilities etc

Keeping it simple there are two forms of innovation technical and commercial.

Because of the nature of email systems technical innovation (in general) needs international agreement (Standards approval etc) and takes a long time as you describe.

Considering the UK only commercial innovation is a simpler situation.
Most ISPs (as other posters have pointed out) provide email as a "free" add on. Now (again as other posters have pointed out) this is at a cost to ISPs. In effect this is a loss leader and has three benefits to the ISPs
a) It discourages competition
b) To a significant number of people it discourages people from moving to another supplier as they would either lose their email address or have to pay to retain it. ( I know there are ways round this but a significant number of people do not).
c) It means that users cannot complain to the ISPs ombudsman (or OFCOM) on email issues.

Because of this one of my first suggestions for a regulation is that (IN THE UK) ISPs would be required to desist from this sharp practice and charge explicitly for email instead of bundling the cost with their internet offering. Alternatively they should not supply an email service and reduce their internet price.
Ofcom made it possible for mobile users to transfer their number to another supplier. They could make it possible to transfer your email address to another supplier. (And yes I know there are ways of doing this now).

This would encourage competition and commercial innovation.

securityguy

vofs007 wrote: »

I think you need to justify this statement.
Statistics are hard to come by but Google users (depending how you measure them) are around 500 Million worldwide. UK Google users lets guess at 10 Million (No doubt some one will correct that figure). BT email accounts (mostly UK based) are probably around 10 million

it's zero. BT's email is simply a rebadged version of Yahoo's. And it could never be 10m, as BT don't have 10m broadband customers.
And I hate to break this to you (I mean, facts and stuff) but people can't use Google's email offering without having an ISP to get there, so people who use Gmail do so instead of using their ISP's email service (or not using it for anything other than communicating with their ISP). So you're engaged in massive double counting, unless you believe that no BT customer uses Gmail.

Because of the nature of email systems technical innovation (in general) needs international agreement (Standards approval etc) and takes a long time as you describe.

No it doesn't. None of the things you appear to want (SLAs, LD, address portability) requires any changes to SMTP or IMAP. Which other standards did you have in mind? I ran big production email services from the mid-1980s through to the mid-noughties, so you can be as technical as you like.

b) To a significant number of people it discourages people from moving to another supplier as they would either lose their email address or have to pay to retain it. ( I know there are ways round this but a significant number of people do not).

So that's their choice, isn't it? The vast majority of people who change mobile phone suppliers don't port their numbers, either (I saw figures, I've forgotten what they were: way under ten percent).

c) It means that users cannot complain to the ISPs ombudsman (or OFCOM) on email issues.

What makes you think that the ISP ombudsman won't listen to ISP email issues?

Because of this one of my first suggestions for a regulation is that (IN THE UK) ISPs would be required to desist from this sharp practice and charge explicitly for email instead of bundling the cost with their internet offering. Alternatively they should not supply an email service and reduce their internet price.

Fine. They'd all abandon doing it and everyone would use Gmail. How would this improve matters?

Ofcom made it possible for mobile users to transfer their number to another supplier.

And almost no-one does, see above.

They could make it possible to transfer your email address to another supplier. (And yes I know there are ways of doing this now).

Everyone just uses Gmail or gets a vanity domain. Seriously, these conversations were being had fifteen years ago and were tired then.

This would encourage competition and commercial innovation.

Email's just there, most people don't care enough to worry about this sort of stuff. The protocols are [STRIKE]moribund[/STRIKE] mature and the action has moved to Twitter, Facebook and various IM protocols. Email address mobility is a solved problem: use Gmail, or get a vanity domain. There's no point in regulating something which is already fixed. Number portability works because Ofcom own the numbering range: neither Ofcom nor ICANN own email addresses.

RobTang

vofs007 wrote: »

This would encourage competition and commercial innovation.

I think it would just annoy people who would essentially loose their email accounts and the they would just switch to free services anyway (gmail, outlook, yahoo.)
There isn't going to be competition because what's on offer for free is pretty good and you're still stuck with your a,b,c issues.


Not many people will pay for their email service and less will go to the effort of getting their own domains and forcing people to do this through regulation doesn't seem like a good idea, esp since I don't really see the benefits apart from being able to complain to someone, which will gain me close to nothing, except I have pay for the privilege.

esuhl

vofs007 wrote: »

I think you need to justify this statement.
Statistics are hard to come by but Google users (depending how you measure them) are around 500 Million worldwide. UK Google users lets guess at 10 Million (No doubt some one will correct that figure). BT email accounts (mostly UK based) are probably around 10 million also or at least not a tiny proportion.
To make the point I have ignored Yahoo, Microsoft etc and other UK ISPs.

Keeping it simple there are two forms of innovation technical and commercial.

Because of the nature of email systems technical innovation (in general) needs international agreement (Standards approval etc) and takes a long time as you describe.

Considering the UK only commercial innovation is a simpler situation.
Most ISPs (as other posters have pointed out) provide email as a "free" add on. Now (again as other posters have pointed out) this is at a cost to ISPs. In effect this is a loss leader and has three benefits to the ISPs
a) It discourages competition

No it doesn't; people can still choose whatever email provider they like.

Email services like Hotmail (or Outlook -- however it's branded now) is free. Does that mean Microsoft is discouraging competition and we'd all be better off if we were forced to pay for it? Is Yahoo abusing it's position as a popular search engine by offering free email? Is the company behind 1&1 discouraging competition by offering the GMX free email service?

Do you want to see free email banned?

vofs007 wrote: »

b) To a significant number of people it discourages people from moving to another supplier as they would either lose their email address or have to pay to retain it. ( I know there are ways round this but a significant number of people do not).

Since the system works as intended, and there is a free market with plenty of competition... Wouldn't it be better to educate people better so they can choose the right email service for them, rather than forcing costly and unnecessary legislation on everyone?

vofs007 wrote: »

c) It means that users cannot complain to the ISPs ombudsman (or OFCOM) on email issues.

With free email services there are no guarantees. But you don't need them. The whole reason they're free is because there are no guarantees! But look at how incredibly reliable even free email services are. I've had so few problems that I'd use a free email provider if I was running a small business.

So get your own domain name and store your email locally. Switch providers whenever you like without ever needing to change your email address.

Or pay for hosted email with whatever SLA and price terms you can negotiate. You can get email hosting, with an incredible 100% uptime guarantee for £1.35 a month here: http://www.rackspace.co.uk/email-apps/email-hosting/rackspace-email

Or set up your own email server. I haven't tried, but this email server claims to be installable in just one minute: http://www.iredmail.org/

There are so many possibilities and choices that I can't understand how you can complain about a lack of competition!? A lack of knowledge or of public awareness, maybe...

vofs007 wrote: »

Because of this one of my first suggestions for a regulation is that (IN THE UK) ISPs would be required to desist from this sharp practice and charge explicitly for email instead of bundling the cost with their internet offering. Alternatively they should not supply an email service and reduce their internet price.
Ofcom made it possible for mobile users to transfer their number to another supplier. They could make it possible to transfer your email address to another supplier. (And yes I know there are ways of doing this now).

This would encourage competition and commercial innovation.

I don't think I know anyone that uses their ISP's email service (except for SMTP, of course). If ISPs were forced to charge for email provision, what difference would that make? They could still cancel your subscription (or raise the price sky high to force you to leave) at any time... Unless your legislation would require email providers to enter lifetime contracts... How insanely expensive would that be to insure and administer?!

Or should they be forced to issue you with your own domain name so you can use any provider you like? Millions of people would end up registering domains that they would end up not using anyway. If you want a domain, register it yourself! Easy!

And why focus on ISPs anyway? Why not target email providers in general? I've had dozens of email addresses that no longer work because the company providing the service went bankrupt or stopped trading. What recourse would I have had with your new laws?

As you say, "there are ways of doing this now". So why do companies need laws to prevent them from doing things just so that people have the ability to do things they can already do?! (Sorry -- I don't get it! )

System

You would need to rewrite the RFC for internet mail. Nowhere within it does the spec even guarantee delivery let alone anything else.