Following my earlier blog on email problems at Virgin Media, I am still unable to access my personal email account, but technical support for the company has now admitted that there are issues with some customer accounts as part of the firm's switch to Google Mail.

The problem appears to affect some customers who have old-style NTL accounts - those with email addresses ending with '@ntlworld.com'.

I gleaned this information from a member of Virgin Media staff only after I escalated my support call, having grown tired of trying to get the front-line technical support staff to fix the issue.

However, the person I spoke with declined to specify the exact nature of the problem, and would only say that they have had numerous calls similar to mine, and that they are still working on it.

It also seems that Virgin Media wants customers to access their email via a browser following the switch to Google Mail, rather than use an email client program.

During my attempts to solve the email problems, I have been told several times that Windows Live Mail (Microsoft's new email client for Windows 7) is not supported by Virgin Media, despite the fact that there are explicit instructions on the company web site for configuring this, as well as other POP mail clients.

I can only assume that the company wants to drive up traffic figures for its web site, as even Google supports POP access to its webmail accounts.

FURTHER UPDATE: Virgin Media has been experiencing further email issues in March 2011. See V3.co.uk readers up in arms over Virgin Media email outage and Virgin Media email issues drag on for two weeks.