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Air Force moves to consolidated e-mail system

Joe.Airman@us.af.mil.

Substitute your first and last names and you’ll soon have the only e-mail address you’ll ever need — one that will follow you wherever you’re assigned, for as long as you serve. And you’ll be able to read and send messages from anywhere.

The consolidated e-mail system is part of a larger project started three years ago by the Air Force Network Integration Center at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., to create a centralized computer network for the service, according to Karen Petitt, a spokeswoman for AFNIC. Right now, major commands and some subordinate units run their own networks.

One network will let the Air Force cut down on manpower and equipment as well as better protect its computers from cyber attacks. Petitt wrote in an e-mail. The network’s commander will be the commander of 24th Air Force, Maj. Gen. Richard E. Webber.

The amount of money that will be saved by centralization can’t be figured because of variables from base to base, Petitt wrote.

As part of the Air Force Network, or AFNet, everyone associated with the Air Force — some 845,000 airmen, civilians and contractors — will drop their base-specific e-mail addresses and use only their @us.af.mil addresses by summer 2013 if not sooner, Petitt wrote.

Air Force personnel were issued @us.af.mil addresses in 2007, but messages sent to them now are forwarded to airmen’s more commonly used base addresses. Once a base joins the new consolidated system, the @us.af.mil e-mail address will be your only one.

Airmen will be able to access their account from any computer with Internet access and a Common Access Card reader, Petitt wrote. A user in the consolidated network will be able to log into a computer on any base. For example, an airman stationed at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., can use a computer at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., and to log into his account.

Perhaps the biggest advantage to the addresses is that an airman no longer has to go for a time without e-mail or network access when he moves from one base to another, and he won’t lose any messages since his e-mail account won’t be deleted as part of a PCS order, as it is now, Petitt wrote.

This summer, Keesler became the first base to migrate its users to the new system. In just 45 days, Air Force Network Integration Center and base officials moved over about 6,100 users, 7,000 computers and 700 organizational accounts from the base network.

Next up to be integrated into the system are Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Ga., starting Monday; Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, starting Tuesday; and Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., starting Jan. 11. It will take one to five months to complete each, depending on the number of users that have to be migrated.