Sprint shutting down @sprintpcs.com e-mail

By WC Staff
last updated

In a move that's expected to affect tens of people, Sprint has announced it will no longer offer PCS Mail after Dec. 31. As such, any @sprintpcs.com e-mail accounts will no longer work.

The shutdown isn't all that surprising - does anyone actually use their carrier account? - and should be an obvious savings for Sprint, which lost $344 million last quarter (opens in new tab).

If you do actually have an @sprintpcs.com account, there are instructions to help you set up and transfer to a new account (opens in new tab), such as Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail - which is a downright nice thing to do and is a positive move for a company with notoriously bad customer service.

Edit: Updated to note that the shutdown only includes @sprintpcs.com e-mail, and that Sprint Mobile Email is still available.

Via PhoneNews (opens in new tab)

WC Staff
WC Staff
9 Comments
  • Actually, there are quite a few people who use/need this...
    Lemme explain:
    Say you use your home ISP (Optonline, RoadRunner, etc.) for your main email.
    You've also set that up on your WM device for your main email--makes sense.
    But most ISPs do not allow you to use SMTP forwarding--that is using their outgoing email servers off their network. This means a lot of people can't send their email from their devices.
    Having your own Sprint email account gets around that as you could use a hybrid: your ISP for incoming; Sprint email for outgoing.
    I suspect there will be quite a few people miffed about this as they will be forced to migrate to Gmail (not a bad thing necessarily) or find another free outgoing email server.
  • Hmmmmmmm. ... Very true, and a very good point.
    It also looks like they're not shutting down ALL e-mail service, just the @sprintpcs.com.
    There's a link to the Sprint Mobile E-mail service, so it appears no one should be left out in the cold.
  • Malatesta:
    I've always seen the PCS mail service as an added bonus. I think that in the larger scale of things, there will be a few hundred people that will be as you said "miffed" about this announcement. But with the proliferation of free email services I don't think that this should be taken as a bad move.
    I personally I'm glad that Sprint is being proactive in shredding the fat and working on reinvigorating themselves as a company. Lord knows that I will be highly "miffed" if they fold into say Verizon and we all get stuck with their outrageous prices for data and voice.
    I also think-my opinion-that the ISP's are cheap bas---- who should get with the times and actually provide a service we could take advantage off. I've had TWC's roadrunner for 5 years and have never taken advantage of their free email accounts due to their archaic implementation of POP3. Wouldn't IMAP make more sense for folks who want to limit bandwith used? Not like they need us to go to their generic webmail interface, we already pay for it so ads shouldn't be necessary.
    anywho, rant over. Hopefully peeps can deal with the change.
  • I agree with Mal. I use it for my outgoing mail as well since Midco will not allow outgoing when not on the midco server. I also use it for these forums as I get a text when new mail comes in so that I can keep up with the posts.
    I hope they can provide a work around for the out going mail.
  • "...affect tens of people.." Made me LOL. IMO, makes more and more sense to go Gmail nowdays. I really don't know how they let this happen, but I have been with SWBELL/SBC/ATT now for 7 years and have been able to SMTP on all my accounts from the phone (yahoo, etc) - I never used my sprintpcs account.
  • Malatesta.
    1) This just says sprint is getting rid of @sprintpcs.com emails, not they are getting rid of their smtp servers. sprint is still an isp (ala data cards) so that's a service they will most likely to continue to provide.
    2) Any ISP worth their salt, should be supporting smtp auth, ala earthlink for instances.
    http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=23490
  • oh noooo!!! I use sprintpcs as my main email. I can send/receive on the go 24/7 and I use the email for my personal stuff, like banking paying bills etc...
    wow I would have never expected this.
    I don't get it, why are they terminating this service? I have never ever call sprint to ask or talk about sprintpcs email.
  • Texting
    I'm one of the tens affected and I'm really miffed about it!! I, and I'm sure tens of others, use the email address of the form 7035551234@messaging.sprintpcs.com to send text messages from email accounts. I do this every single day of my office life and from home since it's so much easier than finger pecking on a tiny cellpad. This calls for an email directly to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. Yeeaahhhh! (as Kramer would exclaim)
  • Hmmmmmmm. ... Very true, and a very good point.
    It also looks like they're not shutting down ALL e-mail service, just the @sprintpcs.com.
    There's a link to the Sprint Mobile E-mail service, so it appears no one should be left out in the cold.
    Sprint mobile email does not work for palm treo 700wx. I guess I will setup msn again.