OT: email

[Keith Nuttle]

I do not know were else to asked this question, and I am sure someone out there has done this in the past.

We currently use Bellsouth as an IPS and have email with pop.att.yahoo.com and smtp.att.yahoo.com as the email server addresses. Our emails end in @sbcglobal.net. (sbcglobal was a company that merged with ATT about 10 years ago)

The question I have not been able to find a yes or no answer: If I change to a non ATT provider, Time Warner, etc will I be able to continue to use the @sbcglobal.net address, as SUB ACCOUNTS in the NEW Yahoo account on the stmp and pop servers of the new provider.

OR is there a way to keep using the @sbcglobal.net address regardless of where I go for an ISP provider.

So far no one has given me a straight answer

[Bill]

No, because that part of the email name is translated (by the use of a "name server") to a physical network address. Think of the complexity of routing email to the right place if what you proposed was allowed.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Straight answer it to keep paying ATT or BellSouth and just use their server for email.

We have a similar setup at work. We keep our @XXXYYY.com email with our original ISP but use Verizon servers for both outgoing mail and web access.

You can take advantage of the faster service by your cable provider, but to keep the old email addresses, you have to keep paying that ISP as they are doing the hosting and routing for those addresses. Everything else will come from the cable servers and be piped through their wires.

[Leon]

Probably not as part of your address is linked directly to the company that you are using now. For instance If you moved to another city and to an address that has the same number and street as you currently have you would not receive your snail mail unless you also told every one that the city has changed also. You could not keep the same old city name part of your old address.

Having said that you might also be interested in knowing that my ISP is AT&T and has been for years. My father had the same provider. Recently, 2 years ago, he moved in with us and although he has an email address with the same company it is now under my account. He decided to drop his internet service when he moved in with us. AT&T would not guarantee that he could keep his old email address since he was dropping his service, So, a few months before dropping his service we added a very similarly named email address to my account for him. We added a "1" to the end of the prefix part of his then current email address. From [e-mail] to [e-mail]. We did this so that he could inform all of his hundreds of email friends of his email address change with as little disruption and confusion to them as possible. All they needed to do was add the "1" to his old address. That went pretty smoothly. Until he actually dropped his old service he was able to check his old email address for stragglers that may not have gotten his initial #7 1/2 shot shotgun blast of out going emails with information of his email address change.

On a similar note, you cannot always keep your old telephone land line number if you change cities and retain the same provider.

[Larry Blanchard]

Straight answer = NO.

[Larry Blanchard]

To expand on my previous short answer, your address is converted into one in the range 216.76.0.0 - 216.79.255.255. Those addresses are the address of BellSouth. To learn how all this works, take a look at:

[G. Ross]

I also have BellSouth. Or ATT as the new name is. My email service is very spotty, Usually 1 or 2 days a week it does not work. No help from ATT help. I started an email address under AIM.Com and it works fine. My problem started when I upgraded to the new service under ATT where the land line and internet all is together through the internet for a total of $67 a month.

[TinWoodsmn]

Fifteen months ago I left ATT for various and sundry reasons, changing to Comcast. ATT allowed me to retain my ATT address for FREE. I did this. Then I went to the ATT setup site for my ATT email and chose forwarding ALL of my messages to my new Comcast address. IT HAS WORKED FLAWLESSLY FOR 15 MONTHS. Try it, you'll like it. When I finally notify all message senders of my new address, I will cancel ATT.

Tin Woodsmn

[Keith Nuttle]

I take it that it can not be done. ;-)

While Tim suggest a way it could be done using a free ATT account, I think we will stay with ATT for a while. The free att account sounds like a way to change, not to stay with the address.

[G. Ross]

Thanks. I'll try that.

[Leon]

I pretty much got the same answer but they would guarantee how long that would last. Apparently the email address is up for grabs when you quit paying for it.

[Bill]

At least in some cases, they wait 6 months until it is up for grabs.

[Bill]

Only because ATT is making it work (by participating as a "forwarder"--my word). Email does not work that way in general.

[Gramps' shop]

I dropped ATT several years ago and still receive email addressed to my @sbcglobal.net address. I did nothing to forward that email account. I now use gmail.

Larry

[Bill]

Yes, the email messages each find their targets by magic! Wondrous, isn't it?

[Larry]

Keith Nuttle wrote in news:l1pkil$e3c$ [e-mail]:

You've gotten plenty of answers so far and the answer is not clearly no. In some cases they may allow you to forward the mail to a new address but there's no obligation on their part.

A simple analogy... You buy a new house and move but you still want to pickup your mail from your old mailbox. The new owner will likely have a problem with that. The post office will forward, and are obligated by law to do so, for a certain amount of time, however ISP's have no such mandate.

Problem is even if they're generous and forward to your new address, you really need to keep the old address for a year, a complete cycle for renewals of yearly occurrances.

YMMV

Larry

[Swingman]

AT&T _owns and administers_ the email SERVER that the domain name "sbcglobal.net" MX record(s) resolves to using the Internet's Domain Name System.

AT THEIR WHIM AND FANCY ONLY, will you be able continue to configure an email "client" to send and receive email through the AT&T owned email "server".

At some point it the future, you will most assuredly have to give up that email address.

NO, except at AT&t's whim and fancy.

That is as straight an answer as anyone can give ... and from the co-founder of the very first web based, third party DNS provider on the Internet. :)

BTW, this issue (changing providers of Internet services like http, smtp, ftp, et al) is the very reason we started "DNS Wizard" back in the early nineties ... to keep companies, and savvy individuals, from being at the mercy of ISP's when it became necessary to switch from one to another.

[Keith Nuttle]

KeithNuttle:

Thanks for the responses. I did a lot of web searches and had conflicting information. It is logical that the answer was NO.

You can always count on the rec.woodworking, even when it is off topic like my question.

Keith