Here are the facts as I (pretty sure) know them. Yahoo handles AT&T's DSL email accounts.

I've called AT&T tech support and customer service and they say they can't help, but there has GOT to be a way to do this. It's too simple of a thing not to be able to do.

I got behind on my dsl bill and my account got suspended. When I paid my bill, they said my account had been deactivated and I had to get a new account. When I tried to register my account with my old email address it would not let me, saying it was in use. I used a new email. The old email address is tied to a dsl account that can NEVER be reactivated. There has got to be a way to retire the old email address so that I can re-create it as a subaccount on my new dsl account. I'm not interested in anything that was in the old account (emails, addresses, etc) - I just want the address back.