Liz and I have been subscribers to Cablevision of Morris for about the last 15 years. As a result we both had e-mail addresses from them. Over the years we've given our e-mail addresses to virtually everyone from friends and relatives, to coworkers, to doctors, lawyers, dentists and virtually everyone we do any kind of business with. We've used it as a log on for various web sites and an emergency contact address for those who might've needed to get in touch with us.

Over the years we've been relatively satisfied with Cablevision. We didn't have any problems with our TV reception, our voip phone hookup worked reasonably well, but the internet oftentimes became very, very slow. It seems that cable companies are still using copper wiring and somehow because of the system that they use your internet speed depends upon how many other users on your branch line are using it at the same time. For some reason, area and my street has very high usage resulting in very slow internet service. Reading the New York Times became quite painful waiting for the pages to turn. S2KI often was difficult because of the slowness, and my older son became a chronic complainer because his online games ran very slowly. Every time we'd call cablevision they manage to come when the speed was fine, and refused to understand why we had a problem and why we were complaining.

On top of that, the bill for the service started to get very high. Every few months we were hit with a new charge for something or another and the bill would go up. What started out as basic service at a very reasonable price a number of years ago became basic service at $174.00 a month.

Verizon Fios came into the neighborhood about 2 years ago. Even though my son the gamer wanted us to make the switch (for the increased internet speed) we resisted. The difference in price wasn't so great and in reality we thought about all of the people who had our e-mail address that we'd have to change.

About a month ago Cablevision raised the price again. That was the last straw. At the same time Verizon Fios offered us a much better deal. We'd get the same phone service, the same TV service with the addition of premium channels for the first year at no additional charge (we don't much watch them so we'll cancel the premium channels after the first year) and internet speeds of 75/75 guaranteed all at a significantly lower price for two years. It was too good to resist.

I don't know how Verizon Fios does it, but somehow because they use FiberOptic cables they don't suffer the decrease in speed regardless of how many users, upstream or downstream, are on line. This would solve a lot of problems for us.

About 5 days ago our Verizon Fios service was connected. The phone line and TV are fine. The internet is amazingly fast. Even my son, the gamer, likes it. It's so fast, in fact, that I've joked with him that he doesn't stand a chance of beating the games. So far so good.

The only problem is the e-mail address. About 10 days before the switch Liz and I got G-mail addresses. Our though was to put everything to the G-mail addresses so that we'd never have to go through the act of notifying everyone again if we ever switch carriers. That part was easy. We each now have 3 G-mail addresses. One for our important e-mails, one for those place (retailers, etc.) where we expect a barrage of junk e-mail, and one for everything else (I use one specifically for the notifications from S2KI). So far so good. But then we started notifying everyone of the change. First we sent out a mass mailing to those in our phone books. Most went through, some were returned. I don't know how I'll get my new e-mail address to them. Next we started trying to think of all of the subscriptions, notifications and other e-mail addresses we've given out. This has been a problem. Who can think of all of them. Who can remember them all. Over the years I've tried to keep a list, but like all lists that stretch over the years, it's far from complete and not quite up to date.

What a pain in the neck this has been. On top of that I'm sure there are plenty of people and business that I've missed. If I've missed you, send me a pm and I'll forward my e-mail address to you.

How about you? Have you ever had to change your e-mail address? Did you lose a lot of contacts? How did you do it?

 

Rob,
we have had four or more ISPs at this residence. The second one back would never respond to problems saying it was our fault. (even when our service died after HE did an upgrade). So I fired him. The last one we had was fine, until they lost their lease on a tower and cut us off without warning. Each time we had to change our email address and go through the hassle you did. After the last one, we thought up a domain name (about 50 of them really) and started ticking off the ones that were taken. When we had one we liked that wasn't taken, I bought the rights to it through DROA (Domain Registry of America) and now we have several email accounts (through Ipage) that will be ours for the rest of our lives, as long as I renew them. One of them is a throwaway, for the times we have to give an email address to buy something on-line. If we start getting spammed, we'll kill it and start with another. I recommend this to all Vintage. You may have done this for your business, but consider it for you and Liz, too.
Morris

 

For about $20 a month I am able to keep all my email addresses with my former carrier.

 

I changed my email address a couple of years ago and sent out notices which apparently were ignored by a lot of people. Since my original was a free address, I figured I'd let all the junky stuff go there and check it from time to time. I do not particularly like the method for sending pics and attachments in my new address but have learned to deal. However, so many people ignored the change I still check the old address every morning and still use it on occasion. Changing your email address is a bit of pain.

 

It's somewhat less prevalent now but an awful lot of online accounts use your email as your login.

We've had a comcast email for a very long time and I dread changing it.

 

I have been thinking about this alot lately. When I retire early next year, I want to change my e-mail and cell phone number. Most of my vendors have my cell number and many have my e-mail. My hesitation is all of the work that it will be to notify everyone that I want to know the new information.

Given that I have a few months I had better get to work setting things up.

 

Be careful what you think you're saying here...

It has become a more common standard online to register an email account AS your account name. However, other than those that specifically say 'Login with "Google", "Facebook", etc... and usually require a confirmation, you don't need to use your email password to login. You would use a password specific to that service.

Those that you're letting use another service do the authentication for you is a different story. Again, those are usually pretty clear - I think S2KI even allows authentication via FB?

 

Rob- to your original post. I've been fortunate. I probably had dial up AOL at first, and when I got a real job had a work email address for everything.

Soon I realized the value of separating work/life in an online world and got a Yahoo! account, then a Gmail account. I still use both. I also set up junk accounts early on, and have been using it for a long time.

I have my junk mail address at comcast (where I don't care if I move/change service) - I'll just get a new one. I also recently updated by charity account to be a gmail forwarder on my site domain instead of local to my comcast account. That also lets me transition that work to someone when I decide to hand it off. I think my main comcast account gets about 10 emails a year. I never check it. Oddly, it's the secondary contact email for all of my other email accounts. Go figure!

 

I have emails with Yahoo, G-Mail, and Comcast. Never use the first. Only use the 2nd for MG club group mailings. And use the last for 99.9%. Never had any issues with it. It is extremely rare to get spam or retailer junk - except for the wife's horse stuff, which goes to her acccount. I do have a rather lengthy and complete list of the sites which link to it with a password.

 

I made the private cell phone for business mistake about 12 years ago.
it took about 3 years after I left that company for the sales calls to finally drop off.

Now I am very judicious about handing out my cell number.
I have thought about giving out a google number that forwards to my cell phone.