Beep Beep! You've Got Mail

Beep Beep! You've Got Mail

Xtra customers waiting for an important email need no longer be tied to their computer, thanks to the introduction of Xtra’s innovative new email alerts service.

The Xtra email alerts service, which launches on Wednesday 9 October 2002, means Xtra customers can have a text message alert sent to their 027 or 025 text capable mobile phone to let them know when an important new email lands in their inbox.

There are around 1.3 million 027 and 025 mobile phone users in New Zealand, with the majority of handsets text capable.

Xtra’s General Manager Rod Snodgrass says the email alerts service is one of a range of next-generation email services Xtra will be introducing to make email even more useful and convenient as email usage continues to grow.

“Email is huge. With the explosion in Internet usage we’ve seen over the last few years, probably the most impressive growth has been around email,” says Snodgrass.

“We have almost half a million email accounts set-up on our system, and our customers send and receive up to 3.5 million email messages a day across our network.

“Email is rapidly becoming the communication tool of choice for keeping in touch with friends, family and business contacts, and the introduction of Xtra email alerts simply takes the convenience of email to the next level,” he says.

Email alerts are the next step in enriching message services on mobile phones, according to Lorraine Witten, General Manager, Telecom Mobile.

“This service is brilliant in the way it integrates two Telecom services so easily and conveniently,” says Witten.

Telecom Mobile was first to introduce email to mobile phones earlier this year. There is a range of email, instant messaging and text service innovations in the pipeline.

Rod Snodgrass says the beauty of Xtra’s email alerts service is that anyone who has an Xtra email account can set the new service up using their existing Xtra email address.

“There’s no need to set-up a new email address or password, or have to worry about telling your contacts to send important mail to a different account.

“It’s also totally flexible, so customers can choose which emails they want to be alerted about by setting-up personal alert rules and profiles, which they can change at any time and as often as they like,” says Snodgrass.

Xtra customers will use Xtra’s recently upgraded Web based email service XtraMail ( http://xtramail.co.nz) to set and manage their Xtra email alert rules and profiles.

When an email that the customer wants to be alerted about arrives in their inbox, a text message containing the first 140 characters of the email, including the sender’s name and the subject, is sent to the customer’s mobile. Receiving an alert costs the same as a standard text message.

Xtra customers will be able to find out more about Xtra email alerts from Wednesday 9 October 2002 online at http://xtrta.co.nz/alerts

Xtra customers can already access their Xtra email on any WAP capable 027 mobile. The Xtra email on 027 service lets Xtra customers receive, read, compose, and send emails using their existing Xtra email address, all from an 027 mobile.

About Xtra A wholly owned subsidiary of Telecom, Xtra Limited is New Zealand’s leading provider of innovative Internet services that help people and businesses connect with each other and the world.

Xtra also delivers New Zealand’s most popular Web services to consumers and digital marketing solutions to advertisers through the XtraMSN Web site. For more information, please visit http://xtra.co.nz/media

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