text: That usually depends on the provider.  If you deactivate an email address, there's usually a time period before that name can be reused by anybody.  After that, it's up for grabs.  Earthlink is like that - I think they have a 6 month wait period between shutting off an email account and reusing that same name.\n\nYou could always try to contact customer support to see if they can re-release it to you sooner, if it hasn't been too long.