Xtra was a brand used by
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
telecommunications provider
Spark
Spark commonly refers to:
* Spark (fire), a small glowing particle or ember
* Electric spark, a form of electrical discharge
Spark may also refer to:
Places
* Spark Point, a rocky point in the South Shetland Islands
People
* Spark (surname)
* ...
(previously Telecom) for its
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
subsidiary from 1996 to 2008. At its inception, Xtra provided only
dial-up Internet access
Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...
, but began providing
ADSL
Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...
service in 1999.
The brand was largely retired in 2008, with internet services adopting the name of Xtra's parent company Telecom (now Spark).
Today, the Xtra brand remains active only as the name of Spark's webmail service, powered by New Zealand-based SMX.
The Xtra name was also used for
Yahoo!Xtra
Yahoo!Xtra was a New Zealand web portal that existed under that name from 2007 to 2011. It was a joint venture between Yahoo!7 and Telecom New Zealand (now Spark). Yahoo!7 held a 51 percent stake in the company and Telecom NZ held 49 percent. Be ...
, a
joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...
web portal
A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...
between Telecom and
Yahoo!7
Yahoo! Australia (formerly Yahoo7 between 2006 and 2018) is the Australian subsidiary of global internet company Yahoo! Originally a 50/50 joint venture between Yahoo! and Seven West Media, it has been a 100% subsidiary of Verizon Media since ...
that operated between 2007 and 2011, as well as XtraMSN (a joint venture with
MSN
MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95.
The Microsoft Net ...
).
History and trading practices
In 1999 Telecom created New Zealand's only ADSL service. Telecom later allowed other ISPs to access its ADSL networks (under increasing government and public pressure), although some claimed that Telecom provided unfair and monopolistic terms of trade regarding its wholesale ADSL services.
As a subsidiary of Telecom New Zealand, Xtra retained some of the
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
that its parent company formerly had. To many people, this monopoly was regarded as an unfair advantage over other ISPs. Many lobbyists, including
Slingshot
A slingshot is a small hand-powered projectile weapon. The classic form consists of a Y-shaped frame, with two natural rubber strips or tubes attached to the upper two ends. The other ends of the strips lead back to a pocket that holds the pro ...
's CEO Annette Presley, persuaded New Zealand's Communications Ministry to force the unbundling of Telecom's
local loop
In telephony, the local loop (also referred to as the local tail, subscriber line, or in the aggregate as the last mile) is the physical link or circuit that connects from the demarcation point of the customer premises to the edge of the common ...
, so as to make fairer trading terms and lessen Xtra's ISP monopoly. The company breached the
Fair Trading Act 1986
The Fair Trading Act 1986 is a statute of New Zealand, developed as complementary legislation to the Commerce Act 1986. Its purpose is to encourage competition and to protect consumers/customers from misleading and deceptive conduct and unfair ...
at least eight times between 2003 and 2010.
ORBS
During 2001 Xtra and Actrix (another New Zealand Internet service provider) won a High Court injunction to force Alan Brown, the maintainer of the
Open Relay Behavior-modification System
Open Relay Behavior-modification System (ORBS), created and run by Alan Brown in New Zealand, was one of the first DNS-based Blackhole Lists (DNSBL), a means by which an internet domain may publish a list of IP addresses, in a database which can ...
(ORBS) anti-spam blacklist, to remove them from the list. ORBS was a blacklist of IP addresses relating to
open mail relay
An open mail relay is a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server configured in such a way that it allows anyone on the Internet to send e-mail through it, not just mail destined to or originating from known users. This used to be the default con ...
s like those run by Xtra, which enable spammers to send unsolicited bulk e-mail. Hundreds of organisations subscribed to the list, including Bigfoot.com and at least one other large free mail provider. They rejected e-mail from any IP address listed in ORBS. The court action led (indirectly) to the end of one of the oldest
DNSBL
A Domain Name System blocklist, Domain Name System-based blackhole list, Domain Name System blacklist (DNSBL) or real-time blackhole list (RBL) is a service for operation of mail servers to perform a check via a Domain Name System (DNS) query whe ...
services.
Go Large Plan
Xtra's "Go Large" plan was introduced as New Zealand's first completely unlimited ADSL service in November 2006. There was much public criticism and disappointment at the instability and general slowness of the newly introduced plan. The plan was advertised with unlimited data usage and maximum speed. However, it was not clearly stated on advertisements that there was a fair use policy and traffic management that restricted users to a download limit between 4pm and 12am. If one were to continually exceed this limit, they would be placed in a "download pool", or contacted with offers to switch to another plan. This triggered a lot of media attention and an investigation was launched. By 22 February 2007, Telecom decided to refund all of its Go Large customers (approximately 60,000) with amounts of at least $130 per customer. This had been caused in part by the overwhelming complaints and criticisms Telecom Xtra had received due to under-delivering on the promises of the Go Large plan. It is speculated that the refund may have cost Telecom Xtra between NZ$7.5 and 8.5 million.
The plan was eventually
grandfathered
A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...
, and in mid-2009 was succeeded by the Big Time plan, where Xtra openly informed users about traffic management. As of 30 October 2009, Telecom cancelled the Go Large broadband plan for all existing customers, offering alternative plan options such as the Big Time plan. On 20 May 2010 Telecom cancelled Big Time, and customers were moved back to capped plans.
Web portals
Xtra's original web portal opened in 1996 and offered two different experiences - XWorld and Text World. Later, XVille was also introduced. You could choose which version of Xtra you visited using a front screen called Xtra Theme Park. XWorld was a virtual world where you could click on virtual buildings to perform functions (such as searching via Yahoo!). Text World was a simpler interface using just text for slower modems.
This all changed in 1999 when a single, more streamlined interface was created and the current Xtra logo was first unveiled.
XtraMSN was one of Xtra's trading names and was used as the branding for its default home page for customers. The name came from a deal between Xtra and
MSN
MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95.
The Microsoft Net ...
, a merger of Xtra's homepag
xtra.co.nzwith Microsoft New Zealand'
msn.co.nz Several other MSN services were cobranded with Xtra in the XtraMSN brand (e.g.
Hotmail
Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services.
Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
). Several versions of capitalising XtraMSN were used by Telecom and
Microsoft New Zealand in their promotional literature.
In 2007 Xtra changed to
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
in
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's place. Their main portal was then
Yahoo!Xtra
Yahoo!Xtra was a New Zealand web portal that existed under that name from 2007 to 2011. It was a joint venture between Yahoo!7 and Telecom New Zealand (now Spark). Yahoo!7 held a 51 percent stake in the company and Telecom NZ held 49 percent. Be ...
.
Technical issues
Yahoo!Xtra Bubble problems
During the change from MSN to Yahoo, Telecom experienced much backlash over a change in email set up. Part of the agreement between Yahoo and Xtra provided that Xtra's email addresses be moved over to Yahoo servers in Australia. To access their Yahoo!Xtra Bubble email accounts, customers had to change advanced settings such as port numbers and authentication, in addition to basic settings such as mail server.
The move to Yahoo!Xtra Bubble caused trouble for many small business owners and website hosting companies in New Zealand. Yahoo's aggressive antispam policies caused business owners to lose bookings and caused major delays for some customers in receiving emails. ''
The Dominion Post'' brought the problem to the fore on 26 November 2007 and showed that responsibility for the trouble was shunned by Xtra.
Xtra pushed the blame back to the hosting companies:
"Telecom spokesman Nick Brown denies there are technical problems with the service, and blames web-hosting companies for forwarding mail without filtering it first for spam."
The problem with their denial was that Xtra/Yahoo's email system forwarded spam in the same manner.
Reports of Xtra's email troubles appeared on blogs, forums and newsletters as people realised that emails were not arriving. New Zealand Tourism Online's October 2007 newsletter reported that they "found several clients who have not been getting accommodation enquiry or booking emails due to the filter system."
One of Xtra's solutions to the problem was telling their users to add the sender of the email to their contacts list. This caused the email be redirected to the inbox, however the immediate deferral of email by Yahoo's email servers could cause delays of many hours. This was a problem that Xtra inherited by joining with Yahoo.
Yahoo denied that they use greylisting practices however "unusual traffic" or "complaints from Yahoo! Mail users" may trigger greylisting against your email server causing a four-hour delay.
Yahoo!Xtra email problems
Xtra customers were hit with multiple email spam problems from February 2013 (80,000 affected) to mid April 2013. The symptoms were suspicious spam and phishing types of email. Telecom advised customers to delete any suspicious emails and to change their account password. Problems continued in November and December, when a Yahoo-operated server went down, affecting thousands of Xtra customers in New Zealand
References
{{reflist
External links
Telecom New ZealandYahoo!Xtra
Internet service providers of New Zealand
New Zealand companies established in 1996
Telecommunications companies established in 1996