Drifter
Honorary Master
As the title states. How can I keep my current e-mail address but change to another ISP for browsing.streaming/gaming? Is this even possible?
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As the title states. How can I keep my current e-mail address but change to another ISP for browsing.streaming/gaming? Is this even possible?
Yes it's possible, depending on your ISP. Phone them and ask them.
Many ISPs offer an email-only plan. But to me, this is plain stupid. Rather switch your email over to Gmail, or another free provider. Alternatively, register your own domain name, and host your email anywhere in the world you want. You can change ISPs and hosting providers without losing your email address.
But choosing to use the email address provided by your ISP is the worst of all options, in my opinion.
As the title states. How can I keep my current e-mail address but change to another ISP for browsing.streaming/gaming? Is this even possible?
Just downgrade to the smallest plan with your current like 5GBs or whatever and keep them as a backup.
Then just sign up to your new ISP.
^ This. And in the meantime, sign up for a new email address elsewhere (either free Gmail, or buy a domain and host your own email, monthly cost can be R30-R50, or even cheaper if hosted overseas).
Then set up an auto-responder on her old ISP email account, informing senders that her email address has changed, what the new email address will be, and when the old email address will be deleted. Start updating her stationery/correspondence and everything else in the meantime.
Also set up an auto-forward rule on her old email account, to auto-forward all new email to her new account. She must not use the old email account at all to send out emails, only the new account. That way she can get her new email address out to everyone very quickly, and make it clear that the old email account is going to be deleted.
For the people that I assist in doing this, we usually set the old email address to be deleted 1 month from the date the new email address is created and starts being used. This is plenty of time. Anyone else who hasn't learnt about your new email address in this time, either isn't important, or can contact your some other way to find out what your new email address is.
With regards to the stationery, and correspondence, she can either toss the old stuff, spend some time rebranding, get her own domain name, and launch her business/service more professionally, or wait till the printed stuff runs out, and then update and/or rebrand everything.
Most people, especially business people, and especially clued-up tech/IT people find it very hard to take a business seriously if they don't have their own domain name, and have an email address like @mweb.co.za, or @telkomsa.net, or the worst I've seen: @vodafone.blackberrymail.com. An email address @gmail.com is still somewhat respectable, especially for individuals/professionals or for new startups in their very early days.
But at the cost of R50 per month and less, any business that won't spend this money cannot be taken serisouly, IMO.
This ^^ except I'll leave the old email address active for 3 months.
Just downgrade to the smallest plan with your current like 5GBs or whatever and keep them as a backup.
Then just sign up to your new ISP.