Slashdot Mirror
ATT Broadband Forfeits Mediaone Domain
Kancer was among the many readers to write with news (as carried by the Boston Globe) that "'beginning next month through March 15, current subscribers with (username)@mediaone.net addresses will be required to change them over to an address ending in attbi.com.' Also 'After March 15, any mail sent to a mediaone.net address will be rejected.' What a pain, looks like they are taking down pop mail and replacing it with web-based e-mail as well."
There'll be POP3, it's just there will now *also* be webmail.
right now you have the choice of either. There is no preference at this time.
WebMail is for people who move around and want to check their account from non-attbi network connected computers.
Some people also prefer WebMail to using Outlook Express (the only supported mail client -- although there are instructions on the web for other clients)
Even a HoTMaiL account is better, or preferably some other for-a-fee services. The best and most expensive is to register your own domain name and point it to some hosting service.
Easier mail client to walk the "AOL crowd" through
As long as the mail client is standardized (ie: "We support this mail client, if you want to use another one, that's fine, we'll give you the servernames, but we won't help you with settings, etc...") then it's just as easy to walk someone through it. Heck, most tech support places just use a script they read from anyway - half the time the "tech" is as clueless as the user, at least in "front-line" tech support, where these kinds of queries get handled.
Webmail is less vulnerable to viruses designed for Outlook/Outlook Express
If it's being brosed by IE, it's insecure. Until MS decides to put some sane defaults in IE as to what kinds of scripts it will execute "out-of-the-box", and what kinds of system information and file access those scripts will have, it will be possible to exploit a user's system through any webpage.
Since 90% of their users will be coming in through IE, "added security" is most definitely NOT what they're getting. The Windows Addressbook is accessible through IE's scripting engine. Unless they have people ditch their addressbooks (good luck - I tried to get my parents to ditch theirs a while ago, in favor of a local webpage, in part to save them from being a node for addressbook worms, and they would not give it up. They were that attached to it.) it's not going to help.
What it will do is add a layer of indirection. IE can't be told to respond to a mailto: link by opening up a webmail client - so all those users are going to have to be explained to why clicking on an email link no longer allows them to email the address pointed to.
If you read the article, the issue behind this is that some other company apparently won the rights to the mediaone.net domain. If ATT doesn't control the domain any more, they can't do any forwarding.
Incidentally, you can buy domain-based E-mail redirection for about $20 per year. So you can buy your own domain (maybe in .nom) just for forwarding purposes.
Make sure you get DNS MX record redirection, not mail forwarding, so the mail doesn't take an extra step.
I've been frustrated with AT&T Broadband ever since I signed up. They block port 80 (which wasn't spelled out in my user agreement, although the 'no servers' rule was), they use your MAC address to limit your access to a single computer, they don't offer static IPs at all.
:)
(Obviously, most of these things are easy to get around. They're just annoying. When I signed up, AT&T was the only broadband service available to me, since you asked.
What's interesting to me is that no where on AT&T Broadband's site do they mention that they also provide consumer DSL service, hidden in their business site. I actually stumbled across this during another unrelated search.
I just found it interesting that AT&T isn't promoting this at all. Apparently they want consumers only on cable modems. Any thoughts as to why, especially when they've been having so many problems with their cable network?