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Eule
join:2014-03-28

Eule

Member

Keeping att.net email address

Hello all!

Quick version:

If I have no other services from AT&T, is there some way to keep an att.net email address, including POP/IMAP access, other than paying for AT&T Dial?

I don't mind paying a little to keep it working, but AT&T Dial is getting too expensive for just an email address.

I don't have any other service from AT&T. My broadband connection is through the cable TV company. My cell phone is through one of AT&T's competitors. I don't have a land line, either POTS or VOIP. I don't even have a pager anymore.

(Yes, this isn't exactly a DSL question, but I can't find a better place that it fits.)

Things I have seen:

There are some references (even here) that if you cancel all your AT&T services, your att.net address is still available as a "free email" account. However, opinion is mixed on whether this works via POP/IMAP or is webmail-only. There is a thread here in the old AT&T forum (now locked) that talks about some of this.

There are also some references online that if you cancel all your AT&T services, your att.net address is still available for a limited amount of time (30 to 90 days), and then goes away forever.

There are some references online to a $7.95/month AT&T "email only" account, but the latest one I can find is from 2012. I may have even had this at some point, but I'm not sure if it's still available.

AT&T has a "free email" signup page here, but when I click the "Start Now" button, I get a page that just says "Registration not available at this time."

Long version:

I was an AT&T Worldnet dial-up customer starting in about 1997. I used it daily until 2001, when I got a cable modem. For a while I kept the service because I would still use it while traveling, but by the late 2000s I only kept it because I had been using the email address forever.

Towards the end of Worldnet (I think), the deal became $4.95 a month for a limited amount of minutes. I took them up on this because it was the cheapest way to keep the address. At some point this may have turned into the $7.95/month "email only" option above; I don't remember for sure.

When Worldnet finally went away, I signed up for AT&T Dial, and my address moved over to Yahoo! and kept working. The att.net email address was the same, I just had to use mail.yahoo.com (and Yahoo's POP/IMAP servers) rather than webmail.att.net to access it. At that time, AT&T Dial was about $15 a month, which was still worth it to me.

AT&T has been raising their prices for Dial and as of 1 May 2014, it will be $21 a month, which is in the "not worth it" category for me.

The address was never an sbcglobal or bellsouth or any other baby-Bell address; it was always an att.net address.

A special added bonus would be the ability to retain the sub-addresses I have, but if I can only keep the main address, that's OK.

Thanks for your help!

Eule
blasher
join:2008-01-10
Valencia, CA

blasher

Member

I got an AT&T.net emai address when I signed up for Uverse. I moved since then to a non-Uverse location. Have TW Internet, just dropped tv for DirecTV.

Anyway, after a year and a half, my att.net email still works. I use Thunderbird as an email client so the pop/imaps stuff works. There was some change about a year or so that somehow changed the webmail access, which don't use.

Bottom line: in my case, my att.net email address still works fine.

Probably wii for you too

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

said by Eule:

If I have no other services from AT&T, is there some way to keep an att.net email address, including POP/IMAP access, other than paying for AT&T Dial?

It is both automatic, and no charge. AT&T still maintains ten old, legacy domains from the days of SBC; in addition to the current:

• ameritech.net
• att.net
• bellsouth.net
• flash.net
• nvbell.net
• pacbell.net
• prodigy.net
• sbcglobal.net
• snet.net
• swbell.net
• wans.net

After I fired AT&T in April, 2011, I went to mail.yahoo.com, and logged in to my Primary pacbell.net email account, and each of the ten pacbell.net sub-accounts. I don't know if it was necessary, I just did it. I still use IMAP and SMTP in both Mozilla Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail. Nearly three years as a former AT&T subscriber, and still accessing the accounts at no charge.
svdec
join:2006-04-25
Decatur, GA

svdec to Eule

Member

to Eule
If you are current on your AT&T accounts at the time you leave, the addresses will remain intact. The only difference is that subaccount addresses become their own primary addresses, which should make little or no difference to the users.

NetFixer
From My Cold Dead Hands
Premium Member
join:2004-06-24
The Boro
Netgear CM500
Pace 5268AC
TRENDnet TEW-829DRU

NetFixer

Premium Member

said by svdec:

The only difference is that subaccount addresses become their own primary addresses...

That has not been my experience. I terminated my AT&T DSL accounts (one was associated with the @att.net domain, and the other with the @bellsouth.net domain) three years ago. Both of the grandfathered email accounts are still setup and accessible as a primary account with multiple sub-accounts; and I can still edit/add email sub-accounts by logging in to: »www.att.com/olam/dashboa ··· mexecute with the appropriate primary account credentials. The only thing that stopped working after I cancelled my DSL accounts (other than the DSL service itself) was access to AT&T WiFi hotspots.
NetFixer

NetFixer to Eule

Premium Member

to Eule
As a former AT&T/BellSouth DSL customer (I terminated the DSL services three years ago), I am still able to get full administrative access to my former @att.net and @bellwouth.net email accounts by logging into »www.att.com/olam/dashboa ··· mexecute . Each of the @att.net and @bellsouth.net accounts are still setup as a primary account with multiple sub-accounts, and I have no problems with editing or adding sub-accounts.

Like NormanS See Profile, I also still have full external access to each of the email accounts via IMAP, POP3, and SMTP, and I also have full webmail access via »mail.yahoo.com/

The major YMMV difference that may cause you problems is that both NormanS See Profile and myself are former AT&T DSL customers, and you are a worldnet dialup customer. In the past, AT&T dialup account email access was terminated if/when the dialup account was terminated, but AT&T DSL accounts were allowed to retain access to the email accounts. I am too lazy to try to find the specific TOS document for dialup only accounts to see if that is still the case; but that is where the answer to your questions should be definitively addressed.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS to svdec

MVM

to svdec
said by svdec:

If you are current on your AT&T accounts at the time you leave, the addresses will remain intact. The only difference is that subaccount addresses become their own primary addresses, which should make little or no difference to the users.

That seems to have changed. While it was true for me in June, 2011 (I tried; about two months after quitting AT&T), not so more recently. I also signed up a couple of free '@att.net' accounts in 2010-2011. One signed up on 07/23/2010 allowed me to set up Yahoo! Addressguard, but the other, signed up on 10/26/2011 did not. Neither '@att.net' account, nor any of my '@pacbell.net' accounts could be managed from the AT&T web site in June, 2011.

However, at the beginning of this year I undertook to change my account passwords. Account management for '@yahoo.com' was done wholly on the Yahoo! web site; but account management for '@att.net' and '@pacbell.net' redirected to the AT&T web site. There are different character requirements for the AT&T passwords, vs. the Yahoo! passwords. The old, SBC primary-sub hierarchy is back. The '@att.net' accounts are newly listed as, "Primary" (but I have not tested setting up sub accounts on them; the option appears available, though). And the 2011 '@att.net' account, as of January, 2014, allowed me to create a Yahoo! Addressguard basename, which I was not allowed in the past.