ATTBI Becomes Comcast.Net

How To Deal With The Changeover

David Radin

June 2003

The following is an excerpt from David Radin's Megabyte Minute Tip Letter. You may subscribe to get more expert commentary, tips, tricks, and opinions in your inbox. Currently, you can sign up for the Megabyte Minute Tip Letter for free.

Summary: You need to do a few things to make sure you don't get burned when transitioning from one ISP to another.

Monday (June 30) is the day of reckoning for customers of the ex-AT&T Broadband cable Internet service. That's the day that Comcast does its official transition from AT&T Broadband for 1.9 million cable Internet customers. These customers have already been through it once - when AT&T bought Excite@Home's user base. And that transition went very poorly. Don't let it happen again. Although Comcast seems to have taken great strides in getting this transition right, you need to help - to make sure that your transition is flawless.

I suggest that you take a few minutes to read the following article in full. Otherwise you risk missing a detail that can affect your transition. So I haven't placed any hyperlinks to skip through it. But I'll start with a summary of issues; then let you click to the article details.

Summary of Issues

Who it affects

• All users of AT&T Broadband Internet service.

Where problems will likely be most evident

• Gap in email service - sending and receiving.

Types of problems to avoid

• Inability to send mail
• Delay of receipt of mail addressed to you @attbi.com
• Loss of incoming mail
• Need to manually change settings that can be changed automatically

Basic Transition process in brief (according to Comcast)

• ATTBI users download transition wizard from connect.comcast.net BEFORE Monday June 30, 2003
• Users run wizard on their PC or Mac BEFORE Monday June 30, 2003 at midnight .
• Users reboot systems on Monday June 2003.
• Some users change email addresses due to conflicting user addresses

Radin's suggested additional steps

• Change of address notifications
• System Backup
• Email Back up

Other Issues

• If you don't have the supported software or operating system
• If you don't run the wizard on time
• If you encounter email address conflicts
• If you use a different email software
• If you use additional Internet applications
• If you use a different start page beside the one they want you to use

Now, let's get to the heart of the matter - and make sure that your transition is easy, effective, and built for the long run.

DR