After Verizon officially transferred ownership of their Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont networks last weekend to Fairpoint Communications, countless users experienced an inability to access their e-mail. Despite's Fairpoint's insistence last weekend that they're working to resolve the problem, posts to our Fairpoint forum indicate that customers still can't access e-mail a week later. A repeated complaint from users is they can't access Fairpoint technical support -- the company's support line is endlessly busy, and support chat requests via the company's website consistently go unanswered. Fairpoint, meanwhile, insists to us that complaint rates are dropping.

Fairpoint is getting ready for the repeatedly delayed complete takeover of Verizon's DSL and landline networks in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. Customers are being informed via e-mail that they'll only be able to access their AOL/Yahoo/MSN Verizon webmail until February 6, after which they'll have to log into www.MyFairpoint.net for ISP e-mail. Interestingly, a clumsily worded notice and follow up report on this by the Rutland Herald seems to have convinced Slashdot readers that Fairpoint is violating network neutrality by blocking access to third party webmail services. That's not the case -- Verizon customers are simply losing access to IMAP-based ISP-email through third party webmail vendors.

User lev writes in to note that AT&T has sent an e-mail to its subscribers (full e-mail below the break) informing them that as of January 31, AT&T Internet users will no longer receiver Flickr Pro accounts. Flickr Pro accounts will be downgraded to regular Flickr accounts -- and all the restrictions that involves -- unless users are willing to pay $24.95 per year to upgrade. "On top of their recently announced low caps, it's almost like they're trying to drive people away," says lev. AT&T isn't alone; Verizon just informed customers they'd no longer be receiving a number of perks with broadband service, including free Flickr Pro accounts -- but users will be seeing more ads. story continues..

Yesterday we noted that AT&T's spam filters have been getting a little aggressive, eliminating legit e-mail alongside spam. AT&T tells us mail delivery was impacted due to "an unexpected error" that occurred during a maintenance update. "The impact was on a small percentage of messages compared to the overall e-mail volume," AT&T's Jenny Parker tells us. "AT&T quickly realized this error and began immediate efforts to restore e-mail delivery to normal conditions." According to Parker, users who continue to struggle with mail delivery can fill out this form.

AT&T users over the last week started noticing that they were receiving significantly less spam in their inboxes thanks to a new spam filter. They then started noticing they were receiving significantly less mail, too. Users say that AT&T techs appear to be aware of the problem. We've fired off an inquiry to AT&T for an official explanation. Meanwhile, there's a scuff up brewing over the fact that Yahoo's "unlimited" e-mail does in fact have very real limits.