Keeping a previous email address and changing to a new ISP

Karmacat

Hi all
Sorry if this is in the wrong area, but it seemed the best one.

I'm with virgin, paying £17.99 a month for 1.1Mb speed unlimited download, was previously on dial up with them, so my email is virgin.net as well, and has been for a long time. I use it for work, and would find it almost impossible to lose it.

So: Sky have an offer of a one-off £20 activation fee, with up to 8Mb d/load speeds and 40GB monthly useage, for £5 a month, which is much, much better than the virgin deal.

It’s a big saving: £156 a year, so I really want to do it if I can :j :money: .

My big question (big to me, anyway, lol!) is, can I change to sky broadband and keep my email as virgin.net. Surely it just means not changing the settings on outlook express? Or maybe before I switched, I'd have to activate the forwarding email option from virgin? Or maybe when I asked for the MAC code they'll give me a cheaper option anyway? What do people think?

espresso

First of all, you shouldn't be paying that much for your BB at Virgin. £10 for 2MB is the norm. i.e. £120 per annum. Try ringing retentions to get a better deal as I very much doubt if you will be able to continue to use your virgin e-mail if you no longer subscribe to their service.

BrunoM

If Virgin do a mail forwarding option, that might work. Doing nothing definitely won't work! Getting Virgin cheaper probably will work, though!

In a similar situation, I have been paying for Demon Internet dialup for several years for no reason other than to keep the email address, having switched to broadband long ago I should try to fix that.

BritBrat

My big question (big to me, anyway, lol!) is, can I change to sky broadband and keep my email as virgin.net.

Yes, I am still using one from years ago and the web space.

I do dial in every once in a while, maybe 2 times a year.

You will need to set up the outgoing SMTP to your new providers details but thats all.

Incoming POP3 = pop.virgin.net

I guess one day it may stop.

Bernie

...is to bite the bullet and get a domain name. This will give you email forwarding so you hand out your new domain email address and have all the email sent on to your current email address.

Whenever you need to change your ISP, all you need to do is amend the service to direct everything to your new email address. I've changed 3 times now.

You also get a catch-all forwarding address so you can give all your services (banks, shopping sites, whatever) their own unique email address. If you start getting spam address through one of these, you know who is flogging off your email address to the spammers...

:beer:

DonnyDave

Find out how often you need to dial up to keep your Virgin account active. Might be every 60 days, 90 days etc. Best to note it in your diary at lesser intervals than you need. For example, if it's 90 days, put down every 75 or 80.

I also suggest getting a domain name.

Karmacat

This is a lot of useful feedback, thanks everyone.

From Britbat: "I do dial in every once in a while, maybe 2 times a year.
You will need to set up the outgoing SMTP to your new providers details but thats all.
Incoming POP3 = pop.virgin.net".
I don't dial in to it - its downloaded to my outlook express programme. Will that make a diference? I'm *this close*to understanding what the bit about SMTP means.... but not there, sorry.

From Bernie: "The real solution ... is to bite the bullet and get a domain name. This will give you email forwarding so you hand out your new domain email address and have all the email sent on to your current email address.
Whenever you need to change your ISP, all you need to do is amend the service to direct everything to your new email address. I've changed 3 times now.
You also get a catch-all forwarding address so you can give all your services (banks, shopping sites, whatever) their own unique email address."

Okay, I understand getting a domain, like, https://www.karmacat.com, and that would give me some email addresses to play with. So, I could arrange to have all my mail from my virgin.net account sent to ... nope....... lost it. Where would it be sent to?? A separate one altgether, like a yahoo or hotmail?

I know it doesn't sound like it, but in my circle of friends I'm actually the *knowledgeable* one about computers. Isn't that scary..........

BrunoM

I thiiiink Bernie was suggesting getting a domain name and dropping the virgin address.

However Britbat's post is interesting... Britbat are you saying you're able to keep using the virgin address (and dialing in now and again) but you aren't paying for it??

BritBrat

However Britbat's post is interesting... Britbat are you saying you're able to keep using the virgin address (and dialing in now and again) but you aren't paying for it??

Yep, got it in one. Not paid for it in years.

I don't dial in to it - its downloaded to my outlook express programme. Will that make a diference? I'm *this close*to understanding what the bit about SMTP means.... but not there, sorry.

If you have broadband see if you can downgrade to dialup before leaving, it may happen anyway on auto after you cancel account but I am not sure about that.

You also get a catch-all forwarding address so you can give all your services (banks, shopping sites, whatever) their own unique email address."

anything@myaddress.freeserve.co.uk

I do that with FREEserve accounts, yes the same way as I do the virgin free, with freeserve the accounts do stop after 3 months, I just go to site and reactivate and they are working again in a few minutes, again I also dial in every now and then, maybe when I want to send a FAX.

Yes I am on broadband but I just start dialup at same time. Been doing the freeserve ones for years too and again still use the web space.

I hardly ever use my ADSL email address.

DonnyDave

Karmacat wrote: »

From Britbat: "I do dial in every once in a while, maybe 2 times a year.
You will need to set up the outgoing SMTP to your new providers details but thats all.
Incoming POP3 = pop.virgin.net".
I don't dial in to it - its downloaded to my outlook express programme. Will that make a diference? I'm *this close*to understanding what the bit about SMTP means.... but not there, sorry.

You dial up every so often to keep your Virgin account open which keeps your Virgin email address active. You don't need to dial up every time you want to get your email; just often enough so that they don't close your account.

Karmacat wrote: »

From Bernie: "The real solution ... is to bite the bullet and get a domain name. This will give you email forwarding so you hand out your new domain email address and have all the email sent on to your current email address.

[…]

So, I could arrange to have all my mail from my virgin.net account sent to ... nope....... lost it. Where would it be sent to?? A separate one altgether, like a yahoo or hotmail?

You might be able to forward on email to your Virgin address, but that will remain keeping your Virgin account open, in any case.

The domain name will take email and forward it to what ever address you want, eg:

yourname@yourdomain.co.uk forwarded to yourname@yourisp.co.uk

Then when you change ISP you simply forward your domain to your new ISP email address.

The other alternative is to not use your ISP's email at all and pay the company hosting the domain for a/some mailbox(es). As an example, I use 1&1 Internet, but there are loads of others.

theloft

Bernie wrote: »

...is to bite the bullet and get a domain name. This will give you email forwarding so you hand out your new domain email address and have all the email sent on to your current email address.
:beer:

There is another way!! Bite the bullet as Bernie says, change to a permanent email address (or 2 -3 if you need) but if you don't want to pay for a domain name and the upkeep, want to keep things simple - get yourself a couple of Google email addresses. eg.(karmakat@gmail.com). Completely free, 2Gigabyte of storage and you send and download via Outlook just the same.
I find it is a brilliant service with anti-spam included. I have invites aplenty if you send me a PM with your current email address but I think it is now open to anyone. See: https://www.mail.google.com