Former AT&T Broadband high-speed cable-modem customers facing a
transition over to Comcast Corp.'s service won't have to worry about orphaned
electronic mail through at least 2004.
That's because Comcast has now made arrangements to pass through e-mail sent
to old attbi.com accounts at least through December 2004.
When it announced plans last month to transition those customers to Comcast
fees, e-mail and service, the MSO planned to keep the old accounts active for
only about 60 days.
The extension given for inbound e-mail was made to give customers more time
to adjust their online subscriptions and e-commerce account information, not to
mention notifying people in their e-mail address books of the change, according
to spokeswoman Sarah Eder.
Starting this month, customers will be notified of the transition on a
market-by-market basis. Once they make the transition to Comcast's network and
servers, they will be given @comcast.net addresses and will use those for
outgoing mail. Incoming e-mail, meanwhile, can be sent to either address.
Compared with the AT&T Broadband service, Comcast's will give customers
one extra e-mail account, bringing the total to seven, as well as 25 megabytes
of network storage for personal files. Most customers will also see little
pricing change.
