ISP E-mail Accounts are Bad, Period.

I’ll keep this brief as I don’t feel like writing about the subject too much.

The bottom line is that that the e-mail accounts that ISPs offer are bad for one simple reason: let’s say you used Comcast High-Speed Internet and exclusively used Comcast for E-mail Services. Then you decided that because of cost, you changed over to Verizon DSL. Guess what happens when you cancel your service with Comcast? You guessed it, all your comcast.net e-mail accounts disappear either immediately or within a short period of time. This is EXACTLY how people lose touch on the Internet. An ISP change is made, but then you forgot to tell everyone that you were moving service providers. Then you also realize that you didn’t carry over your address book that was kept online. You keep e-mailing them, but never to get a reply or get a bounceback stating the account no longer exists. Then you also forget that all those online accounts that you signed-up for don’t have your new updated e-mail address and if you forget or not remember to update all of these accounts, then you may also be risking the loss of a lot of mail.

The problem is not with ISP e-mail services per se, the issue lays with the e-mail service’s dependency on the ISP.

Break the habit and use an ISP-neutural e-mail service. There are free services like Yahoo Webmail, and Google GMail that you can use for free that will always be available to you regardless of the ISP you use. There are also premium paid e-mail services that are available for those wishing to pursue that option.

When you leave an ISP, you may be given some time to transition over to the new service, and they may even be nice enough to establish a forwarding alias to your new e-mail address. But that’s a mess and could only serve as a temporary solution. Choosing what e-mail service you use correctly the first time ensures that you less trouble and headache in the future.