Air Force launches 'E-Mail for Life' initiative

Published July 6, 2007
By Karen Petitt
Air Force Communications Agency

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (AFNEWS) -- Air Force Communications Agency officials are launching an initiative called E-Mail for Life, or E4L. The program is projected to save money, jumpstart the consolidation of the service's multiple e-mail systems and provide senior leaders the capability to e-mail every Air Force member directly.

"The Air Force has wanted to pursue a single e-mail address scheme for some time," said Capt. Jason Fields, E4L project officer. "E4L is the first step in eventually consolidating the 14-plus e-mail and Active Directory systems into a streamlined architecture. Once that is done, it will reduce costs associated with running multiple implementations at the various locations. We're also deploying an anti-spam solution with this initiative which is sized to protect the Air Force from the worldwide increase in e-mail spam."

The first step in this multiple-phase consolidation effort is to give everyone an e-mail address with a universal format. The new E4L addresses will not be base specific, such as @scott.af.mil, but will have the extension of @us.af.mil. This means that every Air Force user -- active-duty, Guard, Reserve, civilian or contractor -- will keep that address for as long as they're associated with the Air Force.

For those working in joint billets or who are currently working at other .mil or .gov sites, an E4L address will be issued as well.

The change for the most part will be transparent to people who use the Global Address List since their name, rank and unit designations will still show. This month users will receive an e-mail notifying them that their new E4L account has been issued.

While this new address will be active when they receive the notification e-mail, it will not affect their current e-mail address, and in fact, any items sent to the E4L address will automatically be forwarded to the current address. Also, the E4L address will not show up on the GAL until mid-summer when the initiative reaches full operating capability.

The e-mail will explain how people can access an online self-service portal page, and how they'll be able to update their E4L information once fully operational. For most people, updating their personal information will automatically adjust as they move from base to base, but for cases where it can't, the self-service portal page can be used to forward the e-mails accordingly.

The actual e-mail address will appear as the person's firstname.lastname, such as: john.smith@us.af.mil. The Air Force will issue users with the same name a numerical identifier based on seniority. For instance, if two people have the name John Smith, then the most senior person as of January 2007 will be assigned the address john.smith@us.af.mil, and lower ranking individuals named John Smith will be assigned a numerical identifier such as john.smith.2@us.af.mil, and so on. Another address identifier will be given for contractors who will have a .ctr after their names, such as john.smith.3.ctr@us.af.mil

Captain Fields said this effort has been the result of a successful partnership between the Air Force Communications Agency, Air Force Network Operations, software experts at the 754th Electronic Systems Group and Microsoft.