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