You just upgraded your Internet service to a digital subscriber line. You had dial-up Internet access with Earthlink and now you cannot retrieve your old email messages or send out those messages still waiting as pending. What do you do you ask?
You can access your Earthlink email through their web based interface. You will need to dial into your Earthlink account in order to access your email messages with their desktop email client software. If you try to access it over your digital subscriber line connection, for security reasons EarthLink might block access.
It should be accessible with their web based email system over your existing digital subscriber line service. Earthlink network may block access to certain specific ports because of security when you are using cable, digital subscriber line, fibre optics, etcetera Internet connection. They might detect traffic that is not encrypted, which they view as a security concern.