sjr@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (Sander J. Rabinowitz) (10/13/90)
I am trying to find out more about AT&T Mail, in view of the fact that MCI Mail is raising its rates. I called AT&T Customer Service to see if I could talk to someone regarding this, and I got transferred to three different departments, all of whom never heard of AT&T Mail! One rep thought I was talking about fax machines, while a second rep thought I was looking for an answering machine! Was I way off base in thinking AT&T Mail was a direct alternative to MCI Mail? And if not, is there a number I can call to find out more about AT&T Mail? Thanks in advance. Sander J. Rabinowitz | 0003829147@mcimail.com | +1 313 478 6358 Farmington Hills, Mich. | --OR-- sjr@mcimail.com | =) [Moderator's Note: AT&T Mail is a direct, and very good alternative to MCI Mail, although AT&T apparently does not really want any new customers or anyone asking for information since they keep their Customer Information Center employees in the dark about it and they don't give any information about it to their (long distance service) Customer Service people either. To be certain that no one reaches them -- you know how much of a nuisance a potential customer can be! -- they keep their 800 number out of the data base (555-1212 has no info on it) and 201-555-1212 doesn't list it either. We went through this once before, and they said they would 'fix' the problem with their phone listings, but you know how that goes. The user's manual I have does not contain any address, but it does admit to one phone number for AT&T Mail: 800-624-5672 if you look through the book long enough (I have the 1986 version). You can also use the MCI Mail gateway to write to !atthelp at AT&T Mail. Its a shame when I have to do their public relations for them, isn't it! PAT]
john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (10/14/90)
On Oct 13 at 19:27, TELECOM Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: AT&T Mail is a direct, and very good alternative to > MCI Mail, > [...] > for AT&T Mail: 800-624-5672 if you look through the book long enough This number is correct -- at least it's the number on my bill. I have found AT&T Mail to be quite reliable, useful, and VERY inexpensive. It is $30/year plus usage. My account is a "UNIX" account in that all transactions are effected via uucp, where AT&T Mail is a "uucp neighbor". I can't offer any experience about the interactive side of the service. I do remember that it was hell finding someone at that organization who would set up an account. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: I've been a customer of AT&T Mail since 1986, and MCI Mail since about 1983. My experience with AT&T Mail was the same as yours. I had to almost beg them to set up the account. The person in charge of that was always 'away from their desk', 'out to lunch', 'in a meeting', or 'on vacation'. You'd have thought I was a bill collector trying to get money. PAT]
JMS@carat.arizona.edu (10/14/90)
Interestingly enough, there is an article in {Portable Computing}
which showed up on my doorstep today, discussing Email services.
(November, 1990 issue, pp. 42)
I will include brief excerpts from a well-done table; if you are
serious about these services, get it from your library or coerce me to
photocopy and mail.
-------------
AT&T Mail 800-367-7225
Sign-up $30, includes one year of service, after that $30/year.
No fee to read, fee to create. FAX, paper mail, other nifty
services. Gateway to Internet.
CompuServe Easyplex 800-848-8199
Sign up $40, $1.50/month maintenance, costs based on time connected.
FAX, paper mail. Internet gateway.
Genie/GE Mail 800-638-9636
Sign up $30, no maintenance fee. Costs based on connect time. paper
mail. (Internet gateway unknown)
MCI Mail 800-444-6245
(these rates are known to be out-of-date)
$25/year fee. Costs based on connect time plus per message fee. FAX,
paper mail. Internet gateway.
Prodigy 800-822-6922
$50 signup fee (this is wrong, as well. You can get the software
plus signed on for free via many PC/Mac publications this and last
month). Usage $10/month flat. no other services.
Sprint Mail 800-835-3638
$20/year fee. Costs based on connect time plus per message fee. FAX,
paper mail, storage fees. (Internet gateway unknown).
Western Union Easylink 800-247-1373
$2.50/month fee. No connect fee (depends on network, may be non-zero).
Message fees. FAX, mailgram (paper mail). (Internet gateway unknown, but
I think it exists, perhaps through DASnet?)
Joel M Snyder, The Mosaic Group, 627 E Speedway, 85705 Phone: 602.626.8680
(University of Arizona, Dep't of MIS, Eller Graduate School of Management)
BITNET: jms@arizmis Internet: jms@mis.arizona.edu SPAN: 47541::uamis::jms trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) (10/15/90)
JMS@carat.arizona.edu writes: >Genie/GE Mail 800-638-9636 >Sign up $30, no maintenance fee. Costs based on connect time. paper >mail. (Internet gateway unknown) As of October 1st, this is incorrect. GEnie just announced what they call STAR*SERVICES. $4.95 a month flat rate for EMAIL, Stock Quotes, single player games and other basic services. Roundtables (newsgroups), uploading/downloading and other services are at the usual hourly fee. Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc. !uunet!biar!trebor trebor@biar.UUCP
pierpont@crboss.enet.dec.com (Howard Pierpont 291-8680 15-Oct-1990 1114) (10/15/90)
My Sept 1990 copy of AT&T Home-Office Resoures lists the following in the AT&T Home-Office Resoure Line Directory: 1-800-722-2688 100 AT&T Products and Services Lists a number of products but... 170 AT&T Mail. I can post a full listing if requested, including how to get on the distribution list. Howard F. Pierpont DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP 450 Donald Lynch Blvd., Marlboro, MA 01752 508-490-8680
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (10/17/90)
In article <13528@accuvax.nwu.edu> JMS@carat.arizona.edu writes:
Sprint Mail 800-835-3638
$20/year fee. Costs based on connect time plus per message fee. FAX,
paper mail, storage fees. (Internet gateway unknown).
Sprint Mail (nee Telemail) has an Internet gateway at sprint.com, aka
sprintf.merit.edu, in Ann Arbor. Mail to postmaster@sprint.com should
yield acceptable results for more information.
I've never used it myself, its addressing is X.400ish & thus really
ugly.
Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept <emv@math.lsa.umich.edu>
moderator, comp.archives
claimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been, an employee of Merit Inc.th1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Thomas Ho) (10/17/90)
I was NOT aware of an ATTmail-Internet gateway, but I guess that one exists. How would an ATTmail user address mail to the Internet/Bitnet? [Moderator's Note: An example: 'internet!eecs.nwu.edu!telecom' PAT]
FLINTON@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Fred E.J. Linton) (10/20/90)
In TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 733, Message 11, the Moderator
writes as follows in reply to sjr@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (Sander J.
Rabinowitz):
>You can also use the MCI Mail gateway to write to !atthelp at AT&T Mail.
AT&T Mail now seems to have an Internet gateway as well, as I
discovered shortly after my return to these shores after 11 weeks
abroad.
From an Internet site, I believe the address atthelp@attmail.com
should work to reach AT&T Mail's Customer Assistance Center. From
AT&T Mail, the "registered UNIX site" internet! acts as Internet
gateway machine (a DIR internet! while connected to AT&T Mail's modem
at 1 800 624 5123 will tell you all I know about that site). BTW, it
used used to be possible to enroll with AT&T Mail on line at that 624
5123 ( = MAIL 123 ) number, but I've forgotten the magic incantations
required.
As to comparisons between MCI, ATT, and CompuServe e-mail
services: my ATTMail telex number has my FEJLINTON userid as
answerback, while my MCIMail telex number has the universal MCI UW
answerback all accounts get. (CompuServe, last I checked, had one
common inbound-telex number/answerback for all subscribers -- first
telex-message line must be the recipient's ID). ATTMail retries telex
sendings for at most four hours, while MCIMail lets you specify a
longer retry period (this can be important when telexing eastern
Europe) -- similarly for FAX transmissions (re CompuServe I dunno);
ATTMail permits sending to a remote printer fed by modem from a
phone line, while neither MCImail nor CompuServe have made me aware of
any such capability on their parts;
ATTMail permits bangpath-style addressing (which I prefer to
X.400) in more contexts than do either mcimail or CompuServe;
Costs are roughly comparable -- fax, telex, and paper-mail
charges are sometimes lower on ATTMail, sometimes lower on MCIMail,
all depending on length of document and destination (again, re
Compuserve I dunno);
MCIMail, unlike ATTMail, makes access to DJ/NR available, at
added cost,while ATTMail, unlike MCIMail, lets you do a HELP UNIX [#]
query, which will list all registered UNIX sites [whose names begin
with the letter # ];
ATTMail recognizes a <ctrl>-C as a "get me a command-prompt
NOW" interrupt, while MCIMail has no counterpart -- if something
really long wants to scroll by you while using MCIMail, you've just
got to wait until it's over (and that happened to me once -- the whole
To:-list of one of the Boston Agency's periodic information bulletins
had to expose itself to me, all of it -- and that while I was still
using 300 baud! -- before the brief message came on);
I've almost never hit a busy signal on _any_ of their modem lines.
As you can tell, I use both -- and belong to CompuServe, too --
and am basically happy with what I get. PS: AT&T Mail's CAC phone
number 1 800 624 5672 is basically a 9-to-5 operation as far as decent
staffing goes.
Fred <flinton@eagle.Wesleyan.EDU>, <fejlinton@{att|mci}mail.com>