That interchange made me curious as to why BigPond never ever had a .au identifier and I asked a friend, a retired Telstra executive. It appears that after OTC and Telecom merged, the newly-formed company Telstra registered on the American (US) stock exchange in 1993. Since the US of A regarded itself as the originator of the internet, it had no national identifier and therefore Telstra too was exempt. There were reasons for Telstra doing this but to elaborate further would make this historical account far too long. It was only after Telstra (BigPond) offered broadband that the .com was replaced by the .net.au.
<br><br>Cheers,<br>Andre<br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 31/07/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Andre Mangan</b> <<a href="mailto:andremangan@gmail.com">andremangan@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hello Mike,<br><br>Stop grinning...I have had a bigpond address since about 1995, if not before. There has never been a .au suffix. Currently I have several bigpond addresses, having retained my dialup address without the .au. My broadband address does have the .au suffix.
<br><br>To attach a .au suffix has become a matter of habit for Australians because all other Australian ISPs use this identifier. Because of this habit, if all emails addressed to <a href="http://bigpond.com.au" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
bigpond.com.au
</a> were to be rejected as incorrectly addressed it would clog the mail system and Bigpond would lose even more customers.<br><br>On second thoughts, keep grinning. What is life without mirth?<br><br>Cheers,<br>Andre<br>
<br><br><br><div><span class="q"><span class="gmail_quote">On 30/07/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Mike Harold</b> <<a href="mailto:mike.harold@bigpond.com.au" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
mike.harold@bigpond.com.au</a>> wrote:</span></span><div><span class="e" id="q_1141960cb92e4d21_2"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;"><span>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background: rgb(228, 228, 228) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">
<b>From:</b>
<a title="andremangan@gmail.com" href="mailto:andremangan@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Andre
Mangan</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>To:</b> <a title="mike.harold@bigpond.com.au" href="mailto:mike.harold@bigpond.com.au" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Mike Harold</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Cc:</b> <a title="ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com" href="mailto:ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, July 30, 2007 5:01 PM
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Subject:</b> Re: Testing Again</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Do you mean the .au at the end of your address that should not be
there?<br><br>Cheers,<br>Andre</div>
<div> </div></span>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Now Andre! You know perfectly well that BigPond
has only recently dropped the au, and that it is still a recognised part of
the address. Besides that, I have had my e-mail address from just about the
first day that Telstra, or whatever it was in those days, changed the name of
its Internet Service Provider to BigPond.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">How far can you go back?</font><br><br><font face="Arial" size="2">- and I am grinning from ear to ear!</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Mike</font></div>
<div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div></div></blockquote></div></blockquote></div>
</blockquote></span></div></div><span class="sg"><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><a href="mailto:andremangan@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">andremangan@gmail.com</a>
</span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><a href="mailto:andremangan@gmail.com">andremangan@gmail.com</a>