Change ISP, keep email?

Dana

Dana

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Dana
So I've been a Comcast customer for years, ever since they bought out the local cable company. We gave up on TV years ago but still have cable for internet. Now Frontier as strung fiber up our street, promising over 10X faster speeds at roughly the same price.

The thing is, I've had a comcast.net email address for all that time and changing it everywhere I use it would be a royal PITA. I know, people will say, "just use gmail", but although I do have a gmail account as a backup and use it for some minor things, I don't like google scanning my emails to send me targeted advertising. And Comcast has been pretty reliable, with a pretty good spam filter.

Anyway, it seems that former Comcast customers can continue to use the Comcast email service, apparently forever, for free. All you have to do to keep it is access your account at least once every 90 days. Huh? I've verified this on their own website, but I gotta wonder, what's in it for them? And what if they suddenly change that policy? Or is there some government regulation requiring them to do this?
 
Dana said:
So I've been a Comcast customer for years, ever since they bought out the local cable company. We gave up on TV years ago but still have cable for internet. Now Frontier as strung fiber up our street, promising over 10X faster speeds at roughly the same price.
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Good question. I'll be following for answers.
I did have a similar situation years ago. I had an ATT.NET email (with AT&T). I'm not sure of the chronological sequence, but somewhere along the line AT&T mail became Yahoo mail. When I left AT&T I kept all of my att.net email addresses, but I access it through Yahoo mail. Which is probably almost as bad as Gmail. At some point I will have to go through the pain of switching to a more secure, private email, whether I have to pay or not.
 
Dana said:
So I've been a Comcast customer for years, ever since they bought out the local cable company. We gave up on TV years ago but still have cable for internet. Now Frontier as strung fiber up our street, promising over 10X faster speeds at roughly the same price.

The thing is, I've had a comcast.net email address for all that time and changing it everywhere I use it would be a royal PITA. I know, people will say, "just use gmail", but although I do have a gmail account as a backup and use it for some minor things, I don't like google scanning my emails to send me targeted advertising. And Comcast has been pretty reliable, with a pretty good spam filter.

Anyway, it seems that former Comcast customers can continue to use the Comcast email service, apparently forever, for free. All you have to do to keep it is access your account at least once every 90 days. Huh? I've verified this on their own website, but I gotta wonder, what's in it for them? And what if they suddenly change that policy? Or is there some government regulation requiring them to do this?
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My guess on 'what's in it for them' is the same as what's in it for google for providing gmail. They can contact you try to sell stuff, and also read your email.
 
I contacted Comcast and asked this question a couple of years ago. I was given a specific time frame that I would be able to continue using my comcast.net email address. IIRC it was 1 year.

That might have changed or I may have been informed. This is Comcast, after all.

Since that time, I've been updating my address to my gmail.com address. I am no longer using the comcast.net address for anything.

BTW, Comcast customer service SUCKS! New service going in on Monday and I'll be done with them.
 
As a minor tangential point, Google claims that it no longer scans the bodies of emails in gmail for ad serving purposes — it now uses your more general online behavior instead. See e.g. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10434152?hl=en Not that that answers the original question, but hey, it does change the equation with gmail a bit, if you trust it and Google…
 
Yes, I'm already using Thunderbird so no worries there.
 
Long range strategy is to buy yourself a domain name and set up family email accounts there. I did that years ago. IIRC I pay my ISP something like $25/year plus ten bucks a month for what I have. This won't fix the comcast problem of course, but you should never have to change your email address again.
 
airdale said:
Long range strategy is to buy yourself a domain name and set up family email accounts there. I did that years ago. IIRC I pay my ISP something like $25/year plus ten bucks a month for what I have. This won't fix the comcast problem of course, but you should never have to change your email address again.
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exactly
 
They snoop through your email and target advertising towards you and sell your demographics to others

Probably not as bad as google though

If you change email providers proton for a “free” service, or just get your own domain and pay for your own hosting
 
FrankBravo said:
... just get your own domain and pay for your own hosting...
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Namesilo can provide you with a .com domain for $11 per year, less if you choose an odd extension like .info or .biz. Web site hosting is optional; you really don't need it, but some service providers bundle it with other services. Email is a separate issue; there are many choices of email service. Pricing varies among the providers: normal services like Fastmail, privacy-minded like tutanota. And you can always roll your own email server. I pay Fastmail, I am past the point where I value money over convenience and support.
 
t3chiman said:
Namesilo can provide you with a .com domain for $11 per year, less if you choose an odd extension like .info or .biz. Web site hosting is optional; you really don't need it, but some service providers bundle it with other services. Email is a separate issue; there are many choices of email service. Pricing varies among the providers: normal services like Fastmail, privacy-minded like tutanota. And you can always roll your own email server. I pay Fastmail, I am past the point where I value money over convenience and support.
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If namesilo goes TU, what happens to your domain (and all your incoming/future messages)?
 
I have for over a decade now had my own domain name and MX that to an email provider. I used Tuffmail until they closed down a few years ago and switched over to Fastmail.
 
t3chiman said:
Namesilo can provide you with a .com domain for $11 per year, less if you choose an odd extension like .info or .biz. Web site hosting is optional; you really don't need it, but some service providers bundle it with other services. Email is a separate issue; there are many choices of email service. Pricing varies among the providers: normal services like Fastmail, privacy-minded like tutanota. And you can always roll your own email server. I pay Fastmail, I am past the point where I value money over convenience and support.
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I’d go through proton if you can
 
Lindberg said:
Whatever you want to happen with it. Your ownership of the domain is independent of the registrar. You can change registrar any time you want.
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So this must also answer Dana’s (the op) question.
The comcast.net email can be switched to another provider.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
The comcast.net email can be switched to another provider.
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I don't think that's correct, but it can be accessed from anywhere.

I already have a couple of domain names that forward incoming mail to my comcast email, but they're used for a [currently dormant] business and I don't want to use them for normal stuff as they don't handle outgoing mail.
 
I had Comcast before my latest move. Been off it for three years and still have my comcast.net email. Works fine and they don't harass me at all. Comcast is not a provider where I live now, so not even a potential customer.
 
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