nmunz63 said:

A friend of my switched from an ISP from a cable TV provider, to an ISP from the phone company. The prior ISP locked him out of his e mail account 30 days after he switched ISP's.

 

How common is this, and is there a way to get the prior ISP to forward the e mails to the new ISP e mail account?

nmunz63

I would say I am not surprised.  Most ISP's are not a charity, but for profit organizations.  As such if they are not getting compensation they will not be providing services.

I moved my website from one hosting site to another and the same thing happened to me, but with a web site when I moved the hosting  I also was able to take my email addresses to the new hosting site.  I was able to access my addresses at my old site for about a month, but there were not messages after a few days when the DNS servers were updated.

My brother changed ISP's but before he changed he contacted the old ISP about email address and they set him up with the same address for a very small monthly charge.  Thus he still has the email address from the old ISP.

If your friend did not make prior arrangements with the old ISP I think he may be out of luck.