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Deutsche Post logo: The group tried to combine analog and digital
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It's over after twelve years: Private customers of Deutsche Post's "E-Post" received the message on Monday about the final end of the service for sending and receiving letter mail digitally.
The letter company wants to store the mail received online on its servers until the end of November, after which the documents will no longer be accessible.
If you want to continue to send or receive mail via the Internet, you have to switch to other services.
The "E-Post-Brief" was one of the first attempts by the established communications groups to link their analog infrastructure to the Internet.
Although e-mails have long been part of everyday life, the offer caused a sensation when it was launched in 2010: one million users are said to have registered online for the service.
But only a fraction completed the complex registration process.
Anyone who still booked the service was completely tied to one provider: Deutsche Post rejected a partnership with De-Mail because it thought it would be better to bring in its initial investment of an estimated EUR 500 million on its own.
The group also continues to offer a mix of letter mail and e-mail.
In 2020, Deutsche Post started a cooperation with Web.de and GMX so that postal customers receive pictures of letters that are on their way to them on the analogue route.
In the case of large mail-order companies cooperating with the providers, the customers not only received the image of the envelope but also the content in digital form.
In contrast to De-Mail and the E-Post-Brief, however, digital delivery is not intended to replace the physical delivery of the envelope – the recipients receive both.
This service is to continue after e-mail has been discontinued.
If you want to receive all letters digitally, you now have to pay just under 25 euros per month from Deutsche Post, and the free offer will be terminated.
There are also offers for business customers.
When asked by SPIEGEL, Deutsche Post did not reveal how many users the “E-Post” had recently.
The apps for the E-Post service will be deleted from the app stores from the beginning of November.
Anyone who has used the »E-Post« service as a digital file folder for important mail must take action by the end of November.
All letters can be downloaded from the Swiss Post servers using a download function before the service is discontinued and the documents become inaccessible.
tmk
