Yes, got it and replied as well.
(my bolding) Make sure that is a .ne and not an .me
If the email address includes “.jp” at the end, it must be used. If it includes “.com” at the end, it must be used. If it includes “.biz” at the end, it must be used. If it includes “.us” at the end, it must be used. If it includes “.net” at the end, it must be used. If it includes “big.bad.jp.com” at the end, it must be used…
See a pattern here? If you don’t use the correct email address, it won’t work. The country you are in has nothing to do with it.
Don’t get me started on the necessary “@” – if you don’t have one in an email address, it won’t work, either…
One other thing to consider: usually when someone texts me on my cellphone, I get a notification to let me know. Sometimes, though, I don’t get any notice at all, and only see that person’s text the next time I go into my in-box and check. Other times, I have to access the server to see if there are any emails in there that haven’t been sent from the server to my phone.
Finally, cell phones have different configurations for blocking certain types of emails. My phone originally didn’t allow mail from certain types of addresses, and I found that some of my friends’ messages weren’t getting through until I went in and changed the settings to allow more types of mail (and that opened the floodgates to crappy spam messages alas).
I’d suggest asking your nephew to look at his mail settings (or go back to the phone shop and have them do it for him).
HTH
Oops, sorry, just a typo, as I did use an .ne.
The only place I usually see them is in addresses associated with public school districts, where the domain is typically in the form districtname.k12.xx.us, with xx being the two-letter state abbreviation. (The “k12” stands for kindergarten through 12th grade.) I also sometimes see simply districtname.us.
Finally, a domain name doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about where a website is hosted or who owns it. For example, the bit.ly URL shortening service has a Libyan URL (the .ly ending) but it isn’t owned by Libyans and it isn’t hosted on computers in Libya. (It’s actually registered to one Jessica McVea in New York City.)
(Also, because this is a common point of confusion, just because a domain name ends in .org doesn’t mean anything. At all. It could be owned by anyone, including a purely for-profit corporation. An example is slashdot.org, a news and commentary website owned by the for-profit, publicly-traded Geeknet, Inc.)
Just for the record, after several tries and waiting a couple of days, I finally got a reply from our nephew in Japan saying he received our email.
I had tried it several different ways, but the one that went through was to .r5.dion.ne.jp.
All the first ones I used “bion” which is what he told my wife, but JpnDude had it right when he suggested some Japanese get the “b” and “d” mixed up, and that is just what happened.
Thanks everybody for a lot of interesting knowledge.
Just tell him to get a gmail account…
Due to all the websites and other places he uses his current address, plus all the people who know it, it would probably be beyond him to do this. Anyway, he has no trouble with what he has, and this is the first time he ever tried to email to the U.S. As I mentioned in my OP, he is not computer savvy.