US Postal Office jumps into cyberspace

Having seen hundreds of billions of pieces of mail getting delivered without
stamps, the United States Postal Office took a major, some may say desperate,
step this week by moving into the 21st century with a delivery service that
blends lightspeed electronic mail with hand-delivered hard-copy snail mail.

The Postal Service’s "NetPost Mailing Online,'' lets users send
electronic documents to a post office nearest to the message’s destination.
There, the document will be printed out, stapled, folded, put into an envelope
and addressed. The letter is then added to a carrier’s regular daily batch of
mail pieces to be delivered to consumers and businesses.

The cost of the service is 40 cents for a 2-page document, staple and all,
only 7 cents above the standard 33 cents first class postage rate. The Postal
Service says the service offers the benefits of delivering a hard copy of a
document to the recipient. "Our customers get a post office and a
professional printing and mailing service inside their computer, and their
customers receive professionally printed, hard-copy correspondence,'' said
Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan.

The online service will be test-marketed in Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia,
New York, and Tampa, according to the postal service.