Have AT&T or U-verse and email problems?

August 20, 2009 / Updated: August 20, 2009 / Lena Shore
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We recently switched over to AT&T’s U-verse for our internet, phone, and cable needs. For the most part, it’s been wonderful.

With their recorder you can record four television shows at a time and watch them from any TV set in the house.  Their recorder is very Tivo like. I miss the little boop-boop-boop noises from my defunct Tivo, but aside from that, it’s been a good move. The internet speeds rival my old cable speeds, but now I don’t have to share the network with my neighbors and experience the 3:00 p.m. internet slow down.

The problem

The only really irritating problem I had was setting up my email. No one explained to me that I’d have to do something special with my AT&T account to get my personal domain (lenashore.com) to work. And, when it failed, it was giving me cryptic messages. I finally figured out the solution and wanted to post it here for anyone who needs it. Even though I now hold the answer, navigating through AT&T’s bastard yahoo page is still a challenge.

The Answer

Turns out that’s because AT&T controls what goes in and out of my computer whenever they want control of it. I understand why. If they let us all do anything we wanted, it could cause serious security issues.

So, what we need to do  is to add any personal email addresses to our AT&T account, so that AT&T knows that it is really us.

  1. Login to att.net with your AT&T information.
  2. Go to the “mail” section (for me that is in the upper right quadrant of the screen)
  3. Go to “Options –> Mail Options” (or More Options..). It’s on the right hand side up close to the top. AT&T mail options
  4. Select  “Accounts” on the left side of your screen. AT&T Accounts
  5. Select “Add or edit an account. From here you can add your personal domain email address. If you want to check your personal email from yahoo’s/AT&Ts mail interface online, you will get options to enter your account information… or you can skip it.
  6. You will get a message telling you that you will need to verify your account by responding to a message that has been sent to this newly added email address. After that, you should be set!

The Trend

It seems to be a trend to add this kind of requirement with our ISP providers. Comcast has recently systematically been requiring their login and password information attached to their SMTP. When I had Comcast, it worked for years without this authentication. One day it didn’t. They claimed it had always been required. So, I changed it and it worked fine again.

I have had the same thing happen with my friends who have Bellsouth. I assume it is because AT&T purchased Bellsouth and they are switching things over to a new system over a period of time.

So, if your email suddenly stops working, it probably has a simple fix that is only a minor inconvenience. Fortunately, it should be easy to fix and it will only have to be done once

…until the next time their systems change. 😉

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