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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."
Enough said. I guess next it will have to be switched to comcast when the purchase goes through. Own your own domain so you don't get screwed!!
Enough said
Chris Woodruff
i lost my @home.com address and had to switch to @shaw.ca
i_am_not@home.com is just more funny that i_am_not@haw.ca
No POP Email,
This used to be the whole reason to get an ISP because there were no free POP servers. Great.
I dont want to be looking at web-based email all day.
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What does attbroadband.com have to do with mediaone? Probably nothing, they just said to themselves "well we're going to piss off 100000 subscribers by making them change their email addresses, what's a few thousand more? Then they'll all look the same!"
Cuz we all know how much marketing people like to make everything look pretty =)
There'll be POP3, it's just there will now *also* be webmail.
they took away the abilty to use a standard client when not hooked to your actual cable modem - so i can't use mail.app or entourage unless i'm at home.
they will only let you get remote mail via an att web page, so it's no longer integrated into the client with all your other mail..
they claim this is an improvement. in order to let you access mail remotely - which every other tin-horn isp can let you do anyway...
1. half speed since dec 1
2. 11% price jack
3. dns sux
4. dhcp pool sux
5. toy mail
if i'm gonna grab my ankles like this, i at least want a free pair of better looking sneakers.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
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)
- i never used my @home address to sign up for anything;
- only used that address to respond to official mail from them to that address;
- and still got epic amounts of spam thru my @home account.
- the buzz is that they had a massive absconding of email records but nothing more, they deny it absolutely.
-any confirmation of this?
-JP
weak as kittens, dumb as a sack of hammers.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
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.
it dies when you're hooked to anything else, like my fallback dialup, my office t1, 802.11 anywhere.
they must think we sit at home bug-eyed to their pipe.
a case of 'depends' and you never have to leave the house.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
if you can't configure via a wizard or mac assistant, you probably can't operate a mouse either.
pop will still work when you're on the cable modem itself - what we want is pop anywhere - so i can stop having to throw a switch every time i want to check all my mail on all my addresses - i have 6 to check between personal and admin respoonsibilities,
i'd like to give out my @home as it's the easiest to give by voice, but now i can't integrate it into a mail client unless i'm playing couch potato.
and for what good reason? certainly none on the customer end - have both - like every mom and pop isp.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
paranoia is underrated in this arena
m
remember, aids testing is anonymous in the US because certain
school districts were caught drooling over the prospects of being able to use the info to fire suspected gay teachers.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jun/burr.ht
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
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.
Have you been living in a cave?
It IS a big deal when software activation codes, hard disk keys (for copy protected software), all sorts of "account info," etc. are tied to email addresses. I don't exactly trust a forwarding service such as yahoo mail for a more permanent solution. Sure, it is not the end of the world, but it can be a real pain to prove you are who you are to some vendors after your email changes.
It also simply sucks if you have an email address you actually like (rather than epd54346@blahblahblah.com). I went through this whole nightmare when MSN assimilated Qwest customers. I am NOT having a hotmail or MSN account- so I switched to a local ISP out of principle- and that was not without its bumps considering I use DSL and there are few people at Qwest who have a clue what they are talking about (they obviously give tech support from a script). Granted this is a different company, but it is the same set of issues. If you vote with your feet, you still get spanked.
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
I don't have anything of actual value to add to this discussion, except to ask...
Are you bi- curious?
Seriously, who came up with the domain name "attbi.com"? It might be vaguely easier to type, but sheesh.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
This might be a little off topic, but I noticed, when ATT@Home turned into @attbi, both a speed up in service and a drop off in spam/Nimda hits. Anyone who has web logs knows that the average residential user with the pirated win2k server ("Der, I got this here copy of server and I'm gonna run it cuz I done wanna gonna be 31337") probably still has Nimda. Sigh. For about 4 days after the switch I take it these people were on the phone trying to get their machines online again. Some words of advice for you MediaOne customers: Relish those few days. Call in sick to work. Eat plenty of food the few days before so you don't even have to get up during said time.
Oh BTW here is evidence of Nimda living on. Depending on the day you see that log you may even see some CodeRed boxes out there.
sig
Cut AT&T some slack. I am sure more of us are aware of the complexities of adding mx records to DNS and ensuring said changes are propogated out to each and every DNS server out there.
That would be a good solution, except you can't count on your connection being up. I'm on AT&T and I've lost connectivity for days. That's plenty of time for a mailserver to stop trying to connect. Plus, they do change your IP address every once in a while. If that happens, you're screwed until you can get the MX records updated.
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.
Maybe they could also include before resending a 4-line notice that they should ask the sender to change the reciever's address (whether in a personal mailbox, or updating a server profile). Then after, say, 3 or 6 months, it would be more reasonable to discontinue those addresses.
The only reason I think this can become more important is that as more people turn to online bill paying, they would need sufficient time to be able to point the various collectors' sites to point to the new address, and since some bills are only sent out every 2,3,4 or 6 months, this would allow for most billing cycles to occur once.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Right now I'm pulling email through an AT&T Worldnet account. They're pretty cool, actually -- they allow remote access from anywhere, if you turn that setting on *from within their network*. You can't make changes to your account unless you're dialed into their systems. And they have dialups all over the world.
:-) ) Personally, I think that's very cool; force the user to spend a little bit more time setting up their client, and in exchange there's no cleartest mail going to or from their systems. Admittedly, AT&T can't control what other ISPs do, and in many cases the mail will be unencrypted during transit, but at least they're doing the part that's under their control RIGHT. If enough providers did that, email would be a lot more secure.
They also ONLY do encrypted mail; you can't do regular POP3, only encrypted. (I think it's over SSL, but I'd have to go review my settings and I'm too lazy to do that now.
It seems really weird that att.net and attbi.com don't talk to each other. Sounds like att.net has it a hell of a lot more together.
Something that is not at all mentioned in the article (or the /. story) is the issue of DNS, but I can't see AT&T retaining rights to the DNS records but not the use of email (the article seems to treat email as the only use for the domain name).
I suppose this means that my spiffy old <username>.ne.mediaone.net (I have fought many times to keep it from changing to one of those ugly hXXXXXXXXX.ne.mediaone.net addresses) will get changed into some ugly attbi.com address.
Either that or they will forgo the PTR record altogether, or screw it up so the PTR and A records don't match. DNS incompetence seems to be a sad trend with AT&T lately.
For those not interested in setting up their own webmail system (such as those mentioned above), Yahoo! Mail does both #1 and #3.
Yep, they do. You have to be willing to get their newsletter, but that's no problem because they only seem to send it once every few weeks.
Still, I agree with the original poster. Getting a domain is the best way to go.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
From my posting on attbroadband.ne.techtalk.general:
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
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 am a former Mediaone customer. My area was bought out by Comcast and they are changing all our email address too. Comcast just bought ATT too... so guess what might happen to those people... Since being on Comcast they have done the following:
1. Raised prices 20%
2. Eliminated all our email accounts (you can call in 3 weeks to get new ones... gee thanks)
3. Mailed us new cable modems and required us to self install them... then bring the old one back to them. (Not that this is difficult but for some people it might be... and bring the modem to US!!! BTW... the Comcast people were appropriately behind bulletproof glass when I brought the modem back)
4. Eliminated the NNTP server completely!
5. DNS servers switched several times and slowed to a crawl when it didn't timeout. (Because I run Linux and that is not a "client OS" it did not pickup the DNS servers from DHCP... I had to call a friend and have him run nslookup on his Win2k machine)
6. Web performance was in the 56k range and down several hours a day for several weeks while things were being changed over to Comcast... (It's now back)
My solution to all this since there are no other broadband providers in the area was to:
1. Setup a DNS caching server... performance increased 10 fold.
2. Register my own domain at dotster.com ($15 a year) and use zoneedit.com (free DNS!)
3. Use my new dynamic domain to setup my own mail server at home... I paid Zoneedit $11 for the year for email backup in case I was down for some reason. Now I have unlimited email accounts, POP, IMAP.... anything I want!
i want them to scale price and service like anyone else does.
the 'everyone gets 1.5 fair and square' argument doesn't hold water. you think they can guarantee everyone on the block 1.5?
feh.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
look - they took tci and att - two of the most maddening companies in the world from a customer support view, and married them - and is anyone surprised? i was hoping they's learn, but guess not.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
my november bill as AS BILLED to my bank statement was $45.95
January ON MY STATEMENT was $50.95
delta $5,
divided by $45.95
= 11.69590643274854% increase.
Any questions?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Finally AT&T is not doing this because they want to. They are doing this because they have to given the legal issues of the domain name. Not nice, not pleasant, but as long as the lawyers are going to play in the domain name space we should all get used to it even if we "own" our own domain names.
'pellino' is a fairly rare name. Only a few hundred in the US - so I doubt the dictionary / random spelling was thrown at a system with only 800K users... and the ones with disclosed recipient names were very specific to *my* combo, and didn't have apellino, bpellino, cpellino, etc...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
you can buy domain-based E-mail redirection [dnscentral.com] for about $20 per year.
Even cheaper: At Gandi.net, you can get your own domain name for €12/domain/yr. If you turn on Gandi's free mail and web forwarding, it redirects http://www.foobar4.org/rest/of/URL to http://you.your.isp/rest/of/URL or http://your.isp/you/rest/of/URL and forwards *@foobar4.org to you@your.isp with up to five exceptions going to other addresses.
Will I retire or break 10K?
First off, I'm skeptical about "losing" the mediaone.net domain; it has been in use since, oh, 1997 or so, so a cybersquatting claim is dubious at best. But if ATT-B decided they wanted an *excuse* to can it, then they might have decided to "lose" it. Anybody know more?
MediaOne was the name US West made up for the stuff it bought, mostly from Continental Cable. And Continental had already set up cable modem service as "Continental Express". But MediaOne really grew it.
Comcast has now agreed to buy ATT-B. Theoretically, the new corporation will be "AT&T Comcast", but there will be a separate AT&T Corp. (the original one) doing telephone and its own ISP stuff. So will "AT&T Comcast" keep the AT&T or ATTBI name forever, or will they decide next year to change it to "@comcast..." or @attcomcast..."?
Me, I'm glad that my real mail is still on a private ISP that lets me POP from anywhere. (I use a MediaOne cable modem.) My wife's email is on Yahoo, which allows both POP and webmail access. Yahoo just announced that their SMTP server will demand authentication (I can understand that, though I don't think Eudora Light can do it) but they still seem okay for POP, and the price is right. My gradeschooler is not happy that his email will be changing, especially if he loses his "name" portion. They'll honor your current @mediaone.net if there's no dupe already on attbi, but a lot of former @home users are already using that space.
The sad thing is, they just went and deleted all the mediaone.* newsgroups and created a new attbroadband.* hierarchy to replace them. No doubt they'll want to move them to attbi.* now.
According to what I've read and what I'm experiencing, there IS no newsgroup server anymore to house the newsgroups.
Problem solved.