UK ISP Your Co-op Broadband to Migrate Old Email Platform

Customers of Your Co-op Broadband, specifically those who use their email platform, have been informed that the platform is to be closed and migrated to another provider from 6th November 2023. Customers will need to migrate their email address or create a new address before that date to avoid losing their messages. But it comes at a cost.

A Co-op Broadband spokesperson said (Which?): “After careful consideration, we have agreed to transfer our existing email service to another Co-operative provider, Innovation.coop (trading as Mail.coop) from 6 November. This will offer an alternative solution that allows customers and members to retain their email addresses.”

Migrating your email address will apparently cost customers some money – annual costs start from £24 for one mailbox and 5GB of storage, which rises to £50 for 25GB and 5 mailboxes. The provider added that any customers or members wishing to retain their current email address will need to fill out the registration form via www.mail.coop by 5 November.

Some of the email addresses used by Your Co-op Broadband customers go back more than 30 years, so it’s only natural that many will want to hang on to them and continue to use it. But as we’ve always said, it’s generally wise to use a separate email service from the one provided by your SP. Not only does this make it easier to switch providers, but it also means that you’ll hopefully be with a service where email is a dedicated focus (for most ISPs it’s an afterthought).

Mail.coop added that they will aim to “minimise any disruption to your e-mail service“, although they rightly warn that there may be “instances where this is unavoidable due to the nature of transferring data from one provider to another“. This is a wise warning because, in our experience of observing this market across several decades, major migrations of email platforms rarely go smoothly.