In June 2009 Swiss Post has launched Swiss Post Box (www.swisspostbox.com)
Quote from their website:
Swiss Post Box is the secure, electronic equivalent to your regular physical mail box. It is the secure electronic post box of the future. With Swiss Post Box you have access to your physical mail online any time, from anywhere. Manage your physical mail online as easily as email.
So far so good. What Swiss Post has done is to license Earth Class Mail’s technology and incorporate it right in their sorting facilities.
In February 2009 Business Week featured an interesting article. In a nutshell: Use virtual delivery of mail in rural areas. Sounds like a great idea, but what if any amount of packages are to be delivered on a rural route? You guessed it, then the USPS truck has to drive no matter what. And have you ever tried to teach older folks the proper use of computer terminals or PDAs? Are you gonna force the people to have internet in order to get their mail? Plus there are still areas with no high speed internet connection. We somehow feel that this idea will not fly.
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http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090211_420364.htm |
#1 by admin on April 7th, 2010
Finland’s postal service is now starting a trial for virtual mail delivery in rural areas…….
“Love letters, payslips and overdue bills will not be spared when Finland’s post starts opening mail and sending scanned copies to selected recipients in a trial aimed at cutting costs and emissions.
Volunteers will receive an e-mail or a mobile phone text message when their mail has been opened, scanned and sent as a PDF file to a secure digital mailbox, to which only the recipient has access, a post official told AFP.
“This (secure digital mailbox) is totally different from e-mail. It is comparable to web banking,” said Tommi Tikka, development director at state-owned Itella, which runs the Nordic country’s postal system.”
Read the full article here