Checking Comcast e-mail results in locked mailbox...

Hello.
I got my iPhone activated in 4 minutes without a hitch, thankfully. I also configured my e-mail accounts fairly easily without difficulty and I have no problems checking and sending e-mail with iPhone. I am using 6 e-mail accounts, including .Mac, Yahoo!, Gmail, Earthlink, Comcast, and a private domain e-mail account on a hosted unix web server. After checking e-mail on my Comcast.net account using iPhone (and, if there is something in the inbox), the Comcast mailbox becomes locked and I am unable to check it using my computer (Entourage client); I can still check it with iPhone though. The lock gets released in about 20 minutes or so, and I can then check it using Entourage, but it becomes locked again after iPhone rechecks it. I experienced the same problem on my private e-mail account on my hosted domain (unix server), which was using POP3. The problem went away when I changed the iPhone protocol for this account from POP to IMAP (but left as POP on Entourage). I can't seem to get my Comcast settings on iPhone to work with IMAP - only POP seems to work, so I’m stuck with the intermittent mailbox locking problem.
I don't see this locking behavior on any of the other accounts, including Earthlink’s POP server. There is something peculiar about the way the Comcast POP3 server is handling the iPhone request. Anyone have any insights?
Thanks,
Stu

Thank you for the replies. I understand this behavior of the POP3 protocol, and how it is possible for some mailboxes to become locked by one client, preventing another from accessing the mailbox until it becomes unlocked. However, the effect on the Comcast account lasts for about 15 minutes. It doesn't happen on some of my other POP accounts, such as Earthlink.
Furthermore, it only occurs when iPhone checks for mail on my Comcast account first (then, it becomes locked and I can't check it from my desktop computer). When my desktop computer checks the Comcast account first, it is not locked afterward, and iPhone (or any other device) has no problem checking for mail immediately afterward.
The likely conclusion is that the iPhone behaves differently from the desktop client (in this case Mail and/or Entourage), causing the POP mailbox to lock (with Comcast, at least). One is tempted to deduce that iPhone is not signaling a release of the mailbox that Comcast expects. Perhaps Earthlink has a much shorter "keep alive" than Comcast, so this behavior doesn't occur.
Thanks,
Stu

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