E-Mail Services
Electronic mail is rapidly becoming one of the most important
methods of business communication. By using e-mail, businesses can
quickly send messages to the millions of firms already on-line across
the globe, for less than the price of a letter, phone call, or fax
message.
VENDORS
BUYING POINTS
VENDORS
Commercial Online Services
Headquarters / Phone Number
America Online (AOL)
Vienna, VA 800/827-6364
CompuServe
Columbus, OH 800/848-8990
Microsoft Network (MSN)
Redmond, WA 800/386-5550
Prodigy
White Plains, NY 800/776-3449
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Dedicated E-mail Services
Headquarters / Phone Number
AT&T
Bridgewater, NJ 800/242-6005
MCI
Washington, D.C. 800/872-7654
Sprint
Overland Park, KS 800/736-1130
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Internet Service Providers
Headquarters Phone Number
AT&T WorldNet
Bridgewater, NJ 800/967-5363
PSINet
Herndon, VA 800/827-7482
UUNet
Fairfax, VA 800/488-6384
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BUYING POINTS
Where To Obtain E-mail Service
Currently, there are three types of services offering e-mail:
commercial online services, Internet service providers (ISPs), and
dedicated e-mail services.
Commercial online services are private online networks offering
e-mail and other services. Members typically pay a monthly fee and
are given a certain number of free hours to spend on-line. Besides
e-mail, these services provide news, chat rooms, and software
libraries. The biggest services include America Online (AOL),
CompuServe, Prodigy, and Microsoft Network (MSN).
Internet service providers are firms that provide a connection to
the Internet. By dialing into an ISP's computer, businesses can
browse the World Wide Web, set up a home page or send e-mail. Most
ISPs are small outfits, serving a local or regional area. However,
there are a few major national players, including AT&T WorldNet
and UUNet.
Dedicated e-mail services are online services set up by the major
long distance carriers: AT&T, MCI, and Sprint. Dedicated services
concentrate only on communication needs, providing e-mail, fax, and
telex capabilities.
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Choosing Your E-mail Provider
When choosing an E-mail Provider, consider the available service
based the features being offered, the ease of use, and the
reliability of the Provider.
Consideration how easy or how difficult it would be to setup the
service with your computer. Setup can range from a simple
installation procedure to a very involved undertaking. Commercial
online services are generally fairly easy to set up. On the other
hand, businesses that are using an ISP may need to have some degree
of computer knowledge to get started. What you need is a seamless
service where the provider gives you a "wizard" type software which
"walks" you through the setup process.
The second area by which to evaluate a service will be "features"
available with the service. For example, some services allow you to
send "alias" e-mail over the same service you are using. For example,
you can send an email from sales@yourcompany.com as well as
custserve@yourcompany.com without having to set up two accounts.
Under one account you can have multiple addresses.
Other Providers require you to use a proprietary e-mail
application, which can make it more difficult to forward messages or
send copies to co-workers. Other popular features allow you to
compose messages off-line, or to send computer files attached to your
messages.
Another factor to consider is reliability. Is the provider
notoriously known for slow service? Is the service often interrupted
or is the system known to be down a lot of times. Likewise, you also
have to consider the speed of service.
With most commercial on-line services and dedicated e-mail
services, you can be fairly certain that your message will be
delivered in a timely manner if the message is sent to another
account on the same service. However, messages traveling on the
Internet may be delayed by traffic or routing problems. As a result,
businesses may want to use the same service as the intended recipient
if they often need to send very urgent messages.
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Sending Files Via E-mail
Most e-mail programs have an option called file attachment. File
attachment allows you to send virtually any type of computer file
along with your e-mail message.
When sending, you must consider how the file is sent. All computer
files must be encoded before they can be sent as an e-mail
attachment. In turn, these files must be decoded at the receiving
end. Unfortunately, different programs use different encoding
formats. The sender and recipient must be able to utilize the same
format for a transfer to be successful.
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Accessing Your E-mail From The
Road
As e-mail become ubiquitous, it becomes necessary for people to
check and receive their emails even while they are away from home or
office. In a business situation, it is very difficult to give up the
ability to send or receive messages while on the road.
Business executives who need to access their e-mail on the road
must look for an e-mail provider that can offer multiple points of
presence (POPs) across the country. This will allow a traveler to
dial a local number to access his or her e-mail account from many
locations.
An alternate solution is to look for a provider that offers a toll
free access number. This will allow you to dial into the network
without paying a toll charge. However, be aware that costs for the
toll free call will eventually be passed along to you through the
service charge. Accordingly, such numbers should be used for only
short periods of time.
Needless to say, if you are savvy with Internet connectivity, you
can access your email account through another service provider, by
calibrating the "check mail" function of the email program you are
using to retrieve your email.
NOTE: There are companies that offer free e-mail service that you
can retrieve and view from the web. This makes receiving and sending
email extremely easy even when you're on the road.
Juno (800/799-JUNO), FreeMark (617/492-6600), and HotMail
(www.hotmail.com) are three of the top "free email" services in the
country. The only requirement to establish an account is that you
complete a profile before receiving the service. This profile is then
used to send advertisements that appear when you access your
account.
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Pricing
E-mail service in very inexpensive and , nowadays, is quite easy
to get. For businesses that do require special addressing
(xxx@companyname.com), there are free email services you can get.
However, in most cases, commercial service providers generally charge
a monthly fee of $10 to $15 per month, unlimited use. But even if
your commercial provider impose bandwidth limit, you can expect to
send or receive about 300 messages in the five hour window.
Disclaimer & Product Information:
The text and documents contained in these reports were compiled
from a number of different sources, representing many different
viewpoints. For that reason, no claims of content accuracy or other
legal issues is made. Also, some of these reports were written
several years ago, so the information contained in them may be
slightly out of date.
No warranty is expressed or implied. These reports are sold and
distributed "as is". The reader is advised to seek legal counsel
before starting any business or implementing any ideas contained in
these documents should the reader need such advice.
Most of the information in these reports applies to people living
in the United States. Some of the information MAY be applicable to
other countries as well.
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Permission is granted to reprint, distribute by any means or even
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