"Extraordinary expenditures will be required," said Robert Rider, Chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, which is asking Congress for a financial infusion to help cover the costs of screening the mail.

Postmaster General John Potter told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the costs of making the mail system safe will run between $3 billion to $7 billion or more. He says the price tag won't be tallied until after the first of the year.

The postal system already has requested a 3-cent increase in stamp prices and it’s not likely to end there.

As costs increase, we can also expect a decrease in timeliness and service. Before September, the service planned to cut about 3 million employee jobs each month. But then mail volume dropped 6.6 billion pieces in the month following the attacks from the same period a year earlier. The result: The service nearly doubled its plans by cutting 11.5 million postal employee hours between Sept. 8 and Nov. 2, according to Richard Strasser, the Postal Service’s Chief Financial Officer.

Increased rates and lower productivity as a result of layoffs and production center closings is likely to affect the way many large mail customers do business. The Direct Marketing Association, for instance, said it had "grave concerns" over the latest postal increase request.

However, expanded use of the Internet is providing an immediate form of communication that could replace the traditional postal form. E-mail messages globally already number in the billions every day; one study has predicted there will be 35 billion daily e-mails sent by the year 2005. In contrast, the U.S. Postal Service delivers approximately 208 billion pieces of mail per year.

Consider the recent action by the city of Houston. The Texas city has launched a program to offer free e-mail to the 3 million residents in the area. The city will also give residents free use of 1,000 personal computers in libraries, fire and police stations.

“I actually think that from a usership and usage basis, growth to a certain extent has been fueled by the attacks and continuing related events. People have been using the Internet to obtain information and to communicate with others more than they ever have. ...it underscores the medium's importance to our everyday life.” -Scott Kessler, Standard & Poor's analyst of Internet software and services stocks.

Businesses and organizations across the country are currently sending millions of letters, magazines, and postcards via the US mail. Although the use of mail will continue, the need to start taking advantage of less-expensive and more modern forms of communication increases. An estimated 86% of all businesses and business organization members have email access, and all should be aggressively compiling and maintaining those addresses.

When you’re ready to take your communications safely into the future, contact us here at eNews Builder. We have the expertise to help you make the transition quickly, easily, and inexpensively.