I'm thinking of changing my ISP, hopefully to get a better deal and maybe go fibre. However, the one thing that's stopping me is not knowing if I will loose my current email address when I swop providers. A workmate thinks that I should be able to keep it ( like my telephone number), but he, like me, hasn't changed ISP for years. Just need clarification. TIA.

I changed providers 2 years ago but kept the email address.

who is your present provider? I know aol allow you to retain your e mail address

I'm thinking of changing my ISP, hopefully to get a better deal and maybe go fibre. However, the one thing that's stopping me is not knowing if I will loose my current email address when I swop providers. A workmate thinks that I should be able to keep it ( like my telephone number), but he, like me, hasn't changed ISP for years. Just need clarification. TIA.

Hi Trev

I think your answer depends on who you are with, but why not get your own domain name ?

so in future you can change your ISP as many time as you like but keep your email address

Steve

Edited 19 September, 201510 yr by RADIOTWO

Yes should have said I was with AOL hence being able to keep mine.

If your with Virgin then the email account will die 30 days after the contract ends, I never use the ISP provided email address, its a way of locking you into that provider so I use gmail and hotmail instead which I can use with any ISP.

If you use an ISP related email account, you will lose it when you switch ISP's, the only ways around this are _

 

1/ Run your own domain and use its email address.

 

2/ Use a paid for 3rd party email supplier.

 

3/ Use a free email service like Gmail or Yahoo.

 

4/ Keep paying for a minimum service from your current ISP.

 

 

As for phone numbers, MOST ISPs let you keep your existing number, the exception being TalkTalk who make it very difficult/impossible.

 

For more info look here http://www.ispreview.co.uk/

That clearly isn't true though Ian as I am still using my AOL email and have been for the last two years since I left them.  I do not know about other ISP's so cannot say about them.

That clearly isn't true though Ian as I am still using my AOL email and have been for the last two years since I left them.  I do not know about other ISP's so cannot say about them.

 

If you dial in to an old dial-up service at least once every 90 days, you can keep the account active; now I believe AOL closed their dial-up service last year (or the year before), so maybe they have allowed the accounts to stay active since then - however I wouldnt count on them staying active forever - there are rumours EE is going to be closing down its old FSnet email servers within the next 12 months as well.

Edited 20 September, 201510 yr by GentleGiant

https://help.aol.co.uk/articles/Can-I-keep-my-AOL-email-account-if-I-lea-UKP1100

I dumped virgin some years ago, after a bust up. I lost my email address, but was no real issue for me.

 

I use a couple of email addresses on ISP specific & one on hotmail.

https://help.aol.co.uk/articles/Can-I-keep-my-AOL-email-account-if-I-lea-UKP1100

 

OK, interesting, are they trying to move in on Yahoo and Gmail?? If so why no advertising; either way it doesnt make much sense, they are doing this for the love of it, they have to be making money out of you somehow.

 

BTW, I try AOL back in the dial-up days, but they were the "Apple" of ISPs, they blocked far too many websites for my comfort, and gave no reasons - or even admitted to the block, the IP would just never resolve using their DNS system.

In general GG is right.

 

If you are no longer with AOL, or Plusnet or whomever they no longer have any contract with you so no need to provide that service. Even if it does work now you can never be sure that they won't withdraw the service to your detrement. And you'd have no comeback for lost emails because there is no agreement of service between you.

 

Better to use on of the free services.

As GG says you can set up your own domain and have a personal email address. It doesn't cost very much and isn't hard to do. I did it for a few years.

 

If you have Office at home it would probably be easiest to go to Outlook.com then that can be connected to your Office Outlook software.

Edited 21 September, 201510 yr by Aspman

As I am with BT now I could of course have one from them but decided against it as it them means informing all and sundry of the change.  Mind you it would get rid of the spam!

  Mind you it would get rid of the spam!

 

BT uses Yahoo so I wouldn't bet on it.

I give out a Gmail address and have it forwarded to my ISP email address, that way I not only have redundancy in delivery, but gmail keeps the copy if I lose my computers copy.

AOL have all my emails if the laptop dies.

I give out a Gmail address and have it forwarded to my ISP email address, that way I not only have redundancy in delivery, but gmail keeps the copy if I lose my computers copy.

 

Does it not annoy you that everything has your own email address on it? And how do you deal with replies, do you log into Gmail to reply or do you reply from your ISP email and expose that?

 

Also it's not really "redundant" at all, if Gmail ever went down (which has happened) then you wouldn't receive your copy in your ISP email anyway so Gmail is still a single point of failure. I'm kind of totally failing to see any point in this vs just using IMAP with Gmail (which is clunky, yes, but sounds much less clunky than what you're actually doing)

Edited 21 September, 201510 yr by gac

BT uses Yahoo so I wouldn't bet on it.

Not for new accounts and old accounts are (slowly) being migrated to bt's own servers

Does it not annoy you that everything has your own email address on it? And how do you deal with replies, do you log into Gmail to reply or do you reply from your ISP email and expose that?

 

Also it's not really "redundant" at all, if Gmail ever went down (which has happened) then you wouldn't receive your copy in your ISP email anyway so Gmail is still a single point of failure. I'm kind of totally failing to see any point in this vs just using IMAP with Gmail (which is clunky, yes, but sounds much less clunky than what you're actually doing)

OK, it goes a bit beyond that (didnt want to complicate things), I use a throw away email set up with people/companies I dont know/trust; that is set up to send copies directly to my ISP email address AND to one of my gmail address's. I do this because when I am in China it is impossible to SEND email via my ISPs email server and often not possible to receive gmail - although for some reason gmail still sends fine; so I get the email via my ISP, and reply using gmail.

 

(People are going to start talking VPNs now, but the Great Firewall Of China is getting very good at blocking them, and it is next to impossible to set one up AFTER you arrive in China, so if the ones you pre-arranged have been blocked, you are stuffed).

 

When not in China I have the option of replying via the masking service, my ISP account or one of my Gmail accounts (I run several).

Well, as soon as you mentioned China, my curiosity disappeared; I don't think there's a single IT setup that isn't too bat**** mental for China. I've heard various stories from a friend of a colleague about just how difficult everything is over there security-wise.

Well, as soon as you mentioned China, my curiosity disappeared; I don't think there's a single IT setup that isn't too bat**** mental for China. I've heard various stories from a friend of a colleague about just how difficult everything is over there security-wise.

 

I was there for December and the first week and a bit of January; for much of the time I couldnt get ANY non-Chinese website to load, and when they did, the speeds were sub-dial-up.

 

With one exception.

 

Nearly every porn search I could think of returned pages that loaded quickly (or as quickly as my 2.2Mbps connection would allow). Porn blocking in China is a mix of keyword and MANUAL blocking- someone deciding it is filth from viewing it and applying a block, so as they were blocking EVERYTHING I wanted to visit, I decided to give them a workout !!. Obviously the porn blockers were having a break when I tried!!!

Yeah yeah. I wasn't looking for pr0n honest I was just testing Chinese cyber defences.

 

I must remember that one :clap:

Edited 22 September, 201510 yr by Aspman

It was late, I was frustrated that I couldnt access Briskoda, what more can I say!!!

 

It was almost a total lock-out, I havent come across such a restriction, for such a long period of time before, usually they only do this for a few day - when there is a major story they dont want the locals to find out about.