Web Space That Came With the Phone Company Package

The website that came with the line

Years ago the business signed up for internet from the phone or cable company. The package included some web space, a handful of email addresses and, sometimes, help registering a domain.

The website went up there, the email addresses went onto business cards and trucks, and everything has worked well enough since. Nobody has looked at the plan in a long time.

The arrangement ties three separate things together: the internet connection, the website and the email. As long as nothing changes, nobody notices.

The day the business wants a faster line from someone else, it notices all at once.

What is tied to the internet account

• The web space, which usually ends when the account does.
• Email addresses on the provider's own domain.
• Your domain, if the provider registered it for you.
• The domain's settings, managed through the provider's account pages.
• Logins nobody has used in years.

The second is the one that hurts most. An address ending in the provider's name cannot move anywhere; it belongs to them, and every customer, supplier and online account that uses it has to be told.

What changing providers does

Cancelling the internet account generally ends the services bundled with it. Depending on the provider, the web space and mailboxes may go the same day or after a short grace period.

Some providers will keep email running for a fee; others will not. The terms are in the original contract or the provider's support pages, and it is worth asking in writing before giving notice.

If the provider registered your domain, moving it away needs their cooperation, which is far easier to get while you are still a paying customer.

Old software, no certificate

Bundled web space was built for a few simple pages. Many plans offer no database, an old version of PHP or none at all, and FTP, an old file transfer method, as the only way in.

That rules out a content management system, so every change goes through whoever still has the FTP password, if anyone does.

Most offer no way to put a security certificate on your own address. Since last August, Google has given secure HTTPS pages a slight edge in its rankings, and forms sent over plain HTTP travel unencrypted.

Many of these sites were also built before most visitors arrived on phones. Google's change favouring pages that work well on phones, in searches made on phones, began rolling out on April 21.

Who owns the domain

Look your domain up in a WHOIS search, the public register of domain holders, or ask whoever set it up. The registrant, the person or company named on the registration, legally holds the domain.

It should be the business. Sometimes it turns out to be the provider, an employee who left, or a web designer from years ago.

For a .ca domain the registrant must meet Canadian presence requirements, which a business incorporated in Canada does. Correcting the registrant is the first job, before anything moves.

A worked example

A family-run gravel pit on the edge of a valley town sells gravel, sand, drain rock and road base to contractors and homeowners, delivered by its own trucks.

In 2006 it took a business internet package from the phone company, with web space and five email addresses on the provider's domain. The domain the business used was registered as part of the same setup.

The website listed products and prices, and the main email address was painted on both trucks. When a faster connection reached the area from another provider, the owners wanted to switch.

Before giving notice, the office manager asked the provider what would end. The answer: the web space, the five mailboxes and the domain's registration, all tied to the internet account.

The domain was moved into the business's name first. The site went onto current hosting with a certificate, email moved to the business's own domain, and accounts were updated over two months before the line changed.

Separate the three

The internet connection, the domain, and the website with its email are different services. Each should have its own account, in the business's name, so changing one never touches the others.

It also lets each service be chosen on its merits: hosting that is maintained and backed up, email that works properly on every phone, and an internet line that is simply fast.

Then switching internet providers becomes a phone call about speed and price, with nothing else at stake.

Email addresses that outlast the provider

Addresses on your own domain move with you between hosts and mail services. Addresses on a provider's domain never move.

Before the old ones close, change every online account that uses them: the bank, suppliers, software licences, the domain account itself. Password resets go to that address, and after it closes they go nowhere.

Reprint cards and invoices, repaint the trucks if needed, and leave an automatic reply running on the old mailbox while it lasts.

Check before the contract renews

Many business internet plans run on fixed terms that renew. The months before renewal are the time to ask, in writing, what is bundled, and to start moving the pieces.

Three questions cover most of it: what ends when the account closes, how long email keeps working afterwards, and whose name the domain is registered in.

Doing it without pressure means the website and email are already separate when the decision about the line comes.

The counter-case

A business with no plans to switch providers, and a few simple pages that rarely change, faces no emergency this month.

Even so, the domain should be in the business's name now, and the email should move before any change of line is considered. The website can follow later, on its own schedule.

Separate the services before you need to, starting with the domain.

The order to do it in

1. Look up the registrant of your domain.
2. Move the domain into the business's name.
3. Set up hosting on a current server.
4. Create email addresses on your own domain.
5. Update every account using the old addresses.
6. Run old and new together for a month or two.
7. Change internet providers only after that.

Step five is the step people skip. The bank, suppliers and the domain account all send password resets to the old address, and once it closes, recovering those accounts is slow.

Old plans on old servers raise related problems, covered in your account on the host's oldest server.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.