What is an E-mail Provider?
An e-mail provider a type of website that lets you sign up for an e-mail account and e-mail address. You need to sign up with a provider to be able to send and receive e-mail on the Internet. There are both free and paid e-mail providers. Your e-mail address may have the same domain name as the e-mail provider website, e.g. [email protected]. In some cases it's different, e.g. Google Mail addresses have the gmail.com domain. In some cases, a single provider may have several different addresses, e.g. Microsoft provides hotmail.com, live.com, outlook.com, among others.
Technically, an e-mail provider doesn't need to be a website, but it generally is.