PC101-Personal Computer 101

What actually is an email address and how does email work?


Think of computer email like you would your snail mail (U.S. mail) address:  for mail to get to you the address first must be unique so the "mailman" knows exactly where to deliver the message.  The same is true with email, i.e. you need to have a unique address so the "mailman", in this case the your ISP internet service provider, can get your message to you.

An email address is generally made up of 3 parts: (1) your Username, followed by a "@" symbol (2) the name of your ISP, and (3) the type of, or location of, the ISP you are using.   e.g.:

dapres@whitehouse.gov

"dapres" = the target person's username
"whitehouse" = the ISP that is hosting your target person
".gov" = the type of ISP, in this case: government.

Some examples of other common suffixes are:
.net = a networking ISP
.com = a commercial company
.edu = an educational institution
.au = an Australian ISP
.uk = you guessed it - a United Kingdom ISP

(For information on how URL's work, click here)

Well, you get the drift.  So that is how the system is designed to help locate the recipient of your email.
 
As far as how email works, well many people in da bus are amazed that it works at all considering that it was not really designed to handle the volume it does, or deal with all the spamand email viruses that frequent the web these days.  A good part of an ISP's system managers job is dealing with email problems.  By the way, you can usually reach that person by sending email to:

postmaster@(isp)(.suffix)

The two ways you can access email is either by it being downloaded to your system from the email server that hosts your email address, or by you accessing it on the internet, i.e. web mail.   Normally, if the email is downloaded to your system then it is deleted from the server upon successful transfer.


Do I need to pay for an ISP just to get email?

You do not need to pay an ISP to get an email address, as there are many free internet email services available.   For example the MSN hotmail.com, Yahoo, NetZero, Alta Vista, etc.  However you need to be able to get to the internet to retrieve your email and there is the rub.   There are still some free internet connection services out there, and some of them offer free email also.  Generally, the quality of service and uptime you will experience is based upon the olde saying: "You get what you paid for."

Got questions you would like answered?  Yes

keoni@isp.com