email2 packages are set up with bandwidth and storage space restrictions, but a lot of people don't understand exactly how this works. email2 is different than basic email in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to attachments. With basic email, attachments get uploaded and downloaded far too many times, and they get stored redundantly all over the place. email2 changes all that.
Here's an explanation of how bandwidth and storage space work within the context of email2:
Bandwidth is another name for data transfer, and it is consumed any time a file moves from a local environment (your PC) to the server (the PEN) or vice versa. This means that when you upload a file to the server, you are consuming bandwidth, and when your recipient downloads a file, he or she is consuming bandwidth. However, once a file has been uploaded, it does not need to be uploaded again every time it is sent. Bandwidth is only consumed once when a file is uploaded, but it is consumed every time that a file is downloaded.
Storage is a bit different. When you upload a file to the PEN (by attaching it to an email2 Message) it is stored on the PEN servers. Storage is only consumed once per file, regardless of how many people retrieve the attachment. This is because they are downloading the file to their local PC, not to a PEN server.
// Edited July 2008