The Universal Postal Union is pressing ahead with ambitious plans to lead the world’s postaloperators into ‘a new digital era’ by launching a global electronic platform for secure postal
services next year.The new ‘.post’ (pronounced as ‘dot post’) platform will enable international postal operatorsto offer innovative e-post, e-commerce and e-government services through a “secure and trusted”electronic “backbone” network, Paul Donohoe, the UPU’s head of electronic services, toldCEP-Research in an interview at the recent Post-Expo in Stuttgart. “.post is a platform forinternational connectivity,” he explained.
The online move is urgently required against the background of the structural decline inphysical mail volumes, the electronic substitution of letters along with the growth potential frome-commerce and other electronic services, he stressed. “It’s taken time for some to wake up and seethat the internet is where customers are,” the long-serving expert stressed. “Posts are realisingthat they can offer e-services as well.”
The new platform will also enable postal operators to offer cross-border services and targetcustomers outside their home markets, Donohoe pointed out. “The time is ripe now for the Posts thathave been doing digital services to see how to offer services to customers in other countries.”
In practice, postal operators will be able to decide for themselves which e-services to offerthrough the future .post platform, and which to offer through their existing national websites orinternational .com portals.
The .post platform will be highly secure to avert cyber-crime, Donohoe stressed. “We are goingto use the latest Icann security standard. We will be the first top-level domain to be secured byDNSSEC.” According to ICANN, this “global upgrade” makes domain names secure against abuse and willthus make the internet more secure by ensuring, for example, that users always land at the correctwebsite and are not re-directed by criminals to lookalike fake websites.
After securing the ‘.post’ top-level domain from internet authority Icann at the end of 2009,the UPU has spent most of the last two years planning the new platform and gaining internalagreement on technical regulations from the 192 national members. A project team has also been setup, with “significant” support from Poste Italiane. A tender has now been issued for IT partners toconstruct the technical infrastructure and this should be completed by the end of March 2012.
Donohoe called on postal operators to commit themselves to a pilot project early next year whichwould see a single portal created for international registered letters. Poste Italiane’s ChiefInformation Officer, Agostino Ragosa, had previously told the World Postal Business Forum atPost-Expo that the Italian postal operator was strongly committed to supporting the .postinitiative. “We are ready to start the pilot with .post,” he told some 400 postal managers. “It’simportant to act all together. I urge all other operators to work with us on this matter. We areworking with the UPU but we need to be supported by other organisations,” the Poste Italianeexecutive said.
The initial “live” phase, scheduled for implementation by next June, will see the launch ofpostal e-boxes and registered e-mail, while secure electronic identification will be another keyinitial function. Other possible portals in future could include ‘EMS.post’ and similarservices.
“We want .post to be live before the Doha Congress,” Donohoe declared. “We are confident thatthere will be a number of Posts who are using .post before the Congress.” The 25th UPUCongress will be held from September 24 – October 15, 2012, in the capital of Qatar where some2,000 participants will decide the key elements of future world postal strategy, including how todevelop electronic services.
Nevertheless, this schedule would still be behind the original timescale which foresaw thedomain going live in mid-2010. In late 2010, UPU chief Edouard Dayan told CEP-Research that theinternet platform would start in 2011.
