Company responsible for South Africa’s most iconic email addresses is having big problems
Mweb, one of South Africa’s largest independent Internet service providers, began an email system upgrade last week that has caused big problems for customers.
The Webafrica-owned ISP controls several of the most iconic legacy email domains, including icon.co.za and mweb.co.za itself, thanks to an aggressive acquisition spree in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Long-standing customers, specifically early adopters whose digital identities and businesses remain invested in these email addresses, have been hard hit by the disruptions caused by the migration.
In addition to mail delivery issues and archived messages being lost in the migration, Mweb’s regular ISP customers are complaining that they are struggling to get support.
“Live-chat logs you out after an hour, and then you have to try again, obviously in the back of the queue, so no chance to get help,” one customer stated.
“I then tried the phone number. After more than an hour and 30 minutes, I moved down in the queue from 35 to 1, and all they did was to confirm my fibre is down.”
While online reports suggest that customers have been complaining about slow and poor support from Mweb for some time, its issues have been exacerbated by the recent email migration.
When Mweb owner Webafrica notified customers about the migration, it assured that there would be minimal disruption to services.
“We’re giving your email a fresh new home on our upgraded mail platform! It’s faster, smarter, and better, and it won’t cost you a cent,” it stated.
“This upgrade will make managing your email simpler and more reliable, while keeping your settings and access just the way you like them.”
Webafrica said that customers who use IMAP with Outlook, Apple Mail, or another email application would not notice any changes. “Your emails, folders, and settings will all stay the same,” it promised.
The only issue it told people to expect was that if they used POP3 and “Leave a copy of messages on the server” was enabled, their emails may download again after the upgrade.
“This is normal and happens because POP3 does not track previously downloaded messages when a mailbox is moved to a new platform,” it explained.
Anything but seamless
Customers whose email has been disrupted by the migration and who have struggled to get support from Mweb have taken to the MyBroadband forum, Facebook, and Hellopeter to report the problem.
One MyBroadband reader whose parents have been affected by the migration said there were a variety of issues being reported, with the biggest being missing emails and a lack of support.
“The live chat never gets answered, the call centre has queues for hours, with the call often cutting out towards the end,” they said, echoing the many other reports MyBroadband has received.
“I had a look for my parents, and it seems many incoming emails reach Mweb’s Antispam Cloud and despite showing as ‘not-spam’ and ‘delivered’, they never arrive on Mweb’s online email or the Outlook client.”
Selecting “Retry delivery from queue” or “Release from quarantine” in Antispam Cloud does nothing, since the email is not in the queue or quarantined in the cloud.
They tried manually adding emails to the allowlist, but this also did nothing. Adding insult to injury, Mweb’s network status centre states their email service is experiencing no issues, which is obviously incorrect.
Webafrica responds to migration gone awry
MyBroadband contacted Mweb owner Webafrica for comment, and chief technology officer Alan Kirton said that it was incorrect to characterise the migration as having gone “awry”.
“It’s important to separate ‘a migration at scale’ from the suggestion that the programme has ‘gone awry’,” Kirton stated.
“We’re now well over 80% through the migration, with more than 300,000 customers in scope, and the vast majority of mailboxes have moved successfully without incident.”
Kirton said a relatively small percentage of customers have reported issues, and they treat those cases seriously and work them through as a priority.
“These cases are most commonly linked to differences in how customers historically stored mail,” he explained.
“For example, archived folders, locally cached folders, sent vs sent items, client-side PST storage, folders not synchronised by older clients, and duplicates in some POP3 clients.”
Kirton said at the same time, some Outlook setups, can be sensitive to specific connection and security settings.
Newer Outlook configurations that use Microsoft’s cloud-based synchronisation for third-party IMAP services were particularly sensitive and contributed to setup and synchronisation complaints.
“As we identified these patterns, we made adjustments to the migration approach, expanded pre-migration guidance, and improved the post-migration checks and recovery workflow,” said Kirton.
He also said they have published guidance to support teams and are actively assisting customers through the preferred support channels.
Regarding missing mail, Kirton said they are encouraging customers to log it urgently for investigation by emailing [email protected].
“In many cases, we can resolve issues by correcting client configuration, re-synchronising folders, or recovering specific items where legacy data is still retained during the stabilisation period,” he said.
“Recovery is subject to technical feasibility and retention controls, and we are clear with customers that recovery cannot be guaranteed indefinitely as the legacy platform is progressively decommissioned.”
For Outlook synchronisation issues, the majority are configuration-related and can be resolved by ensuring the correct server settings and security methods are used.
Webafrica work-from-home
Kirton denied that Webafrica’s work-from-home strategy has affected the quality of customer support it delivers. Webafrica shut down the Mweb offices last year.
“No, our work-from-home operating model has been in place for some time and is operating successfully, supported by established management practices, quality monitoring, and performance measurement,” said Kirton.
“We consistently track customer experience and service levels, and the model has not reduced our ability to support customers effectively.”
While they continue to strive to improve every day, and believe they can always do better, Kirton said they have seen periods of elevated demand during migration waves.
“We’ve responded by increasing capacity, improving routing, and prioritising migration-related cases to reduce resolution times,” he said.
“We’re also continuing to accelerate self-service and digital support journeys for faster turnaround on common issues.”
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