CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. -- Air Force Communications Agency officials launched an initiative called E-Mail for Life, or E4L, and will affect 7,457 e-mail accounts at Charleston AFB.

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, Scott AFB, Ill. "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 was to give Charleston Airmen of an e-mail address with a universal format. The new E4L addresses are not base specific, such as @charleston.af.mil, but have the extension of @us.af.mil. This means that every Air Force user -- active-duty, Guard, Reserve, civilian or contractor -- keeps 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 was issued as well.

The change for the most part was transparent to people who use the Global Address List since their name, rank and unit designations still shows.

While this new address became active when they received the notification e-mail, it didn't 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 explained how people can access an online self-service portal page, and how they can update their E4L information once fully operational. For most people, updating their personal information automatically adjusts 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 appears as the person's firstname.lastname, such as: john.smith@us.af.mil. The Air Force issues 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 was assigned the address john.smith@us.af.mil, and lower ranking individuals named John Smith were assigned a numerical identifier such as john.smith.2@us.af.mil, and so on. Another address identifier was given for contractors who have a .ctr after their names, such as john.smith.3.ctr@us.af.mil

"E-mail for Life will make PCS-ing easier because Airmen don't have to get a new e-mail address at each base," said Alvin Green, 437th Communications Squadron chief of the Network Control Center.