Lose email when choosing to terminate virgin media service

[ranj]

Hi

 

I think I know the answer to this but thought I would check. After 10 years I am thinking of leaving Virgin to go to Sky as I am paying over the odds and Sky ATM are offering a better deal with more choice.

 

I am happy to stay with Virgin if the price is right and I'll see what retentions say.

 

If I don't get the deal I want I expect that I will lose my virgin email address which poses a bit of a problem for me as it was my first ever email addresses and everyone has got to know it.

 

Does anyone have any advice on what I could do. I use Outlook so have all my emails backed up but not sure how it will work for current correspondence.

 

With hindsight I understand that using my ISP email was a bad idea. I am thinking now to buy my own personalised email address. Would others recommend this? if so which is the best one to go for? any pitfalls to look at?

 

Much appreciated.

[kmount]

Yes, buy a domain and get some email hosting so it's not tied to your ISP.

 

Consider someone with a proven track record like CSNewMedia UK Email Hosting - CS New Media Web Hosting

 

If you don't want to fork out for the mail hosting you could consider hosting your domain with GoogleApps which is free (but you need to go through the hoops sorting out MX records etc)

 

I bought some personal domains a few years ago when I was in your shoes and have not looked back one bit.

[rlweb]

Buy your own domain and use google apps ftw.

[tom_newton]

Buy a domain as folk have said, then send an email to your addressbook informing them of your new address - a bit spammy, but you haven't a lot of choice. Go back through your mails to look for companies you deal with (like amazon etc.) where you need to change your address. Then, give it 1 month without using the old address - just check it - and pull the trigger.

[jedmondson]

i am slowly moved mail to gmail a few years ago but now virgin media are google mail for domains powered anyway.

[pritchardavid]

be warned you may not get the speed that you go with, with sky

 

The speed decreases futher away from you bt exchange

 

Best bet is to go to this link here and you can enter your postcode and door number and it will tell you what services you can get plus what speed your estimated to get

 

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=29017&s_cid=con_FURL_infinity#noBT

Edited August 16, 2010 by pritchardavid

[GrumbleDook]

Although I have my own domains I still have my @mac.com and @gmail.com addresses as big points of contact outside of work .... I am slowly moving away from gmail, only using that for google related stuff, but plan to stick with mac.com ... I learnt the hard way of not having email and webhosting with your ISP after BT cut it off early and I didn't have a chance to take everything off. I lost a lot of pictures and contact details ... that was 9 years ago and I haven't looked back since.

 

I do find using my Virgin account (actually an ntlworld address still) is handy as a spam trap.

[CyberDrac]

I have two domains, one is a Linux hosting package which allows me unlimited outward facing public forwarder addresses and then I have another e-Mail hosting package which has better e-Mail facilities which everything gets forwarded to from the public facing domain ... I then create a new e-Mail address for anyone I deal with which is unique to them, it allows me to identify any 'leaks' and close them without exposing my 'proper' e-Mail address ... I then use Virtual Identity in Thunderbird to ensure that anything I send out at least gives the impression that it is coming from the outward facing address unique to that recipient (although if they were to look through the headers they would discover my deception).

 

Admittedly it's slightly OTT, but it serves a purpose.