How the Postman Almost Owned E-Mail

Continued from page 1

By Stuart N. Brotman

July 29, 2002

E-mail to the Rescue?

In the mid-1970s I argued that the USPS could be a logical manager of a household electronic message delivery system, but added this cautionary note: "The USPS has not developed the skills to capitalize on whatever its charter may allow in the telecommunications area. It seems most likely, therefore, that we shall continue to let private enterprise lead the way to electronic mail service to the home. Such private competition has the promise of the most important benefit-the fullest possible play for innovative technology and services."

In January 1982, my worst fears concerning the Postal Service began to unfold when it introduced Electronic Computer-Originated Mail. E-COM was a message system designed to serve volume mailers, such as Shell Oil and Merrill Lynch, by generating mail from data stored electronically. The service rolled out to 25 post offices and transmitted the messages to other cities, which then transformed them into hard copy and delivered them within two days. The Postal Service was to be the active agent in E-COM, involved with all aspects of management.

Immediately, I took to my trusty Smith Corona typewriter to let the world know that the camel's nose was moving into the tent. The New York Times published my op-ed piece, in which I called for the Reagan Administration to "curb big mail, too" by proposing legislation that would bar the Postal Service from providing future end-to-end electronic mail service.

Amazingly, I soon had my answer. The Postmaster General of the United States, William F. Bolger, wrote a Shermanesque reply pledging that "the Postal Service be prohibited by law from entering the Generation III' (terminal-to-terminal) business. That aspect is the proper domain of the telecommunications industry. Our mandate for 206 years has been the delivery of hard-copy messages. That will remain our function."

So the war ended shortly after the first battle began. But with a different turn of events, we might all be logging on to our Postal-Service-controlled e-mail messages. Or perhaps we would not have taken to that new medium at all, kept our Smith Coronas and waited for our friendly postal carrier to knock on the door and announce, "You've got mail."