# how t keep email while switching internet company



## mishpat (Jul 24, 2012)

Years back, i was told that it is impossible to get email forwarded from one company to another. To be specific, if I leave comcast and go to FIOS,is there any way, any software, any fee based product that would allow my comcast.net mail to get forwarded to a verizon.net address. Probably will take me moths to notify all those who need notice.


----------



## Beefnot (Jul 24, 2012)

Don't know the answer to that question, but you might want to consider getting a hotmail or gmail or yahoo account so that you don't have to deal with headaches every time you change internet services providers.


----------



## Janann (Jul 24, 2012)

*Check with your new provider*

The new provider will generally offer a forwarding service for 30 days in order to overcome this issue with prospective customers.


----------



## JeffW (Jul 24, 2012)

Janann said:


> The new provider will generally offer a forwarding service for 30 days in order to overcome this issue with prospective customers.



In the case of the OP's exacmple, I'm not sure there's any way Verizon (FIOS) would be able to intercept and forward email destined for a Comcast email address.  To a degree that's one of the incentives for staying with the original company.

I think you're only option is probably to pay for an extra month or so of service from the current company, so you can monitor whether you still get important emails to it from people who haven't been informed of your new address.

Jeff


----------



## geekette (Jul 24, 2012)

If you aren't keeping Comcast, that email addy would no longer be available to you.  It would likely die at the same time your account registered "cancelled".

That's why I don't use the Comcast email accounts myself and have stuck with Yahoo for more than a decade - completely portable.  

Sorry, this is a DIY project.  Neither vendor has any obligation, ability nor incentive to help you with this.


----------



## Larry (Jul 24, 2012)

geekette said:


> If you aren't keeping Comcast, that email addy would no longer be available to you.  It would likely die at the same time your account registered "cancelled".
> 
> That's why I don't use the Comcast email accounts myself and have stuck with Yahoo for more than a decade - completely portable.
> 
> Sorry, this is a DIY project.  Neither vendor has any obligation, ability nor incentive to help you with this.



Same here I have switched from Cablevision to Verizon FIOS and have had my AOL account as well as a yahoo account (which I hardly use) for years and never have to worry about switching internet providers.:zzz:


----------



## csxjohn (Jul 24, 2012)

Beefnot said:


> Don't know the answer to that question, but you might want to consider getting a hotmail or gmail or yahoo account so that you don't have to deal with headaches every time you change internet services providers.



I agree with this advice.  There are a few forum sites that require an email account that is tied to a paid subscription program but they are few and far between.  The only one I belong to is Digital Photography so it's very easy to change that one account.

My advice is to open a free account as beefnot has suggested, before you cancel your current service, inform all your contacts through links provided by the new email service, such as gmail, and problem solved.


----------



## Janann (Jul 24, 2012)

*Clarification -- they don't forward, they notify*

My mistake on Verizon FIOS.  They don't forward e-mail from an old address, but rather they notify everyone in your contact list from your previous provider.

From the Verizon website:

What do you need to import?
Select one of the following from the left navigation in the SETTINGS tab in Verizon Message Center:

Import and Switch Email: The Import and Switch Email feature copies your mail and personal information from one email provider to another. Additionally, this feature will send notification to all your contacts, informing them of your new email address. Select SETTINGS/IMPORT/ Import and Switch Email/Import Email Accounts and enter an email address and password to get started. (Note: Please use this option if you intend to discontinue use of your non-verizon.net email account.)


----------



## JeffW (Jul 24, 2012)

"switch notification" by the new provider makes sense.  But I'm not sure I'd necessarily want to do that.  Unless your contact list is current and to a degree active, I'm not sure I'd want to blindly send them an email with your new address.  I know in mine, there are probably ones I've added years ago that I never deal with anymore.

I think the best thing is a month or so before you plan on ending your service, send your active contacts an email with your new address.  I don't know if with say Comcast, you can pay to keep their email address w/o having internet service with them.  [They won't do it for free I'm sure, but maybe for $10-$20/month you can keep your old email active.]  

Alternatively, you just make the switch, and immediately send out an email from Verizon to your contacts with your new address.  Hopefully you won't lose many/any emails during the transition.

Jeff


----------



## csxjohn (Jul 24, 2012)

JeffW said:


> "switch notification" by the new provider makes sense.  But I'm not sure I'd necessarily want to do that.  Unless your contact list is current and to a degree active, I'm not sure I'd want to blindly send them an email with your new address.  I know in mine, there are probably ones I've added years ago that I never deal with anymore.
> 
> I think the best thing is a month or so before you plan on ending your service, send your active contacts an email with your new address.  I don't know if with say Comcast, you can pay to keep their email address w/o having internet service with them.  [They won't do it for free I'm sure, but maybe for $10-$20/month you can keep your old email active.]
> 
> ...



If I rember correctly, and that is not alway the case, when I switched to gmail I was given the option of which contacts I wanted notified of my new email addy.

Sometimes the change is made to avoid people you no longer want contact with, so this made sense to me at the time.


----------



## bogey21 (Jul 24, 2012)

When I left Earthlink years ago they offered to let me keep my Earthlink email account, for a monthly fee of course.  I chose not to take them up on it but it was definitely offered.  You might ask Comcast if this option is available.

George


----------



## MOXJO7282 (Jul 24, 2012)

I just went through this going from Verizon to Cablevision. I was able to buy my domain name with my email for $19.95 a year. I thought it was worth it to pay the small amount and keep my email address because so many of my TS rental clients have it. If you wanted to do the same ask the CSR and I bet you can as well.

The one tip I can give you is to do it before you cancel your service so you can carry all your contacts and emails over easier. I cancelled first and then had to re-establish my account because nobody told me you can't do so with a closed account.


----------



## PigsDad (Jul 24, 2012)

Getting your own domain name is the way to go.  That way you can have a very simple email address, instead of something like kurt27773@gmail.com since there were already 27,772 other Kurt's registered before you at Gmail.    You can also set up as many email addresses as you want.  So you could set up tug@<your_domain>.com for all your TUG correspondence, if you wanted.

There are good deals if you look around.  Last time I renewed my domain name I paid $70 for 10 years.  I don't have to think about it again until 2018.  

Kurt


----------



## mishpat (Jul 24, 2012)

*Comcast to Verizon*

Comcast supervisor just told me they offer nothing if a customer leaves. The reasonable Verizon $19.95/year does not existing Comcast service. He told me" once a customer laves us, they are gone".


----------



## JeffW (Jul 24, 2012)

Not surprising.

The OP should decide if their main email address will be an ISP-provided one (Comcast, Verizon), or an independent one (Yahoo, Google).

I decided back when dialup was the internet access method to go the independent route (Yahoo in my case) because I couldn't see staying with the same provider forever, and I didn't want to HAVE to deal with changing email addresses.  

If you go this way, you can start to change your email address now while still with Comcast.  There's no reason to wait until you change.

Jeff


----------



## Ken555 (Jul 24, 2012)

Sooner or later you will want an indepedendent email account not tied to a particular service. No one should be using an email attached to their ISP any longer. FWIW, I second the recommendation of getting your own domain, but it's not always needed and can add extr complication. Gmail, yahoo, aol...they all offer free email addresses. Of course, yahoo just lost thousands of passwords...but don't let that stop you...


----------



## CapriciousC (Jul 24, 2012)

I agree with the advice to either get your own domain or go with something like gmail that you can get to from anywhere.  Personally I like gmail because I'm kind of anal retentive and I have various e-mail addresses set up for different things (helps to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were - the one that I use as a contact for online shopping, for example, is the most prone to spam).  I also like gmail because it links easily to my smartphone, so I technically never have to be sitting at a computer to check e-mail.


----------



## carl2591 (Jul 24, 2012)

EASY answer..

Get Gmail account
Yahoo account
hotmail account
any free web based account or get your domain name and use that account email.. you have to buy hosting. go through godaddy.com and email is cheap for the year.  hosting is like 4 bucks a month.. 


just get the gmail and forget it ... get several.. one for friends, associates etc, another one for stupid website that want email addy to look at stuff and another one for just your favorite people and never use it anywhere and you will get no spam.. 

then when you change providers you dont care plus there are easier to check when not at home comptures.


----------



## ausman (Jul 24, 2012)

PigsDad said:


> Last time I renewed my domain name I paid $70 for 10 years.  I don't have to think about it again until 2018.
> 
> Kurt



Kurt,

Who did you renew with.?

This is the cheapest I've seen, I need to renew within 6 mths or so and most are around $10/yr, some lower.

I'm with GoDaddy currently and have unlimited email address, I noticed in looking around tonight other hosters are limiting them in number.


----------



## PigsDad (Jul 25, 2012)

basham said:


> Kurt,
> 
> Who did you renew with.?
> 
> ...


It was 10-domains.com, but they went out of business.  Fortunately, my ICANN registration was fine and was transferred to hover.com.  I haven't seen as good of a deal since then; I'm glad I grabbed it when I did.

I host w/ bluehost.com which provides me w/ a website, unlimited emails, apps, etc. for $4.95/mo.  I've been happy with them and their service.  If I was just using email, I'm sure I could get something a bit cheaper.

Kurt


----------



## Kal (Jul 25, 2012)

I previously had Earthlink as my email provider.  When I switched to another provider Earthlink offered to forward my emails to the new firm by keeping that part of the account partially active.  The cost was $3 per month, but it has risen to currently $5 per month.  My goal was to make sure I did not lose emails and send notices to the hangers on as each message was received.  Even now I see a message that I would want, but mostly occupany email.

That's a nice provision to consider when selecting a new email service.


----------



## MOXJO7282 (Jul 26, 2012)

MOXJO7282 said:


> I just went through this going from Verizon to Cablevision. I was able to buy my domain name with my email for $19.95 a year. I thought it was worth it to pay the small amount and keep my email address because so many of my TS rental clients have it. If you wanted to do the same ask the CSR and I bet you can as well.
> 
> The one tip I can give you is to do it before you cancel your service so you can carry all your contacts and emails over easier. I cancelled first and then had to re-establish my account because nobody told me you can't do so with a closed account.



Anyone that is considering doing what I did, DON'T. I have had nothing but problems with the webmail.verizon.net and I've now discovered it has major issues from Forums that I'm reading on the website.

VERIZON CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THE WORSE OF ANY COMPANY I'VE EVER EXPERIENCED.


----------

