Hall Of Fame

The U.S. Postal Service goes electronic.

It's d-day for mechanical postage meters, as the USPS slowly phases them out in favor of digital and electronic postage meters that are more difficult to tamper with. Businesses are required to trade in their mechanical meters for electronic ones by December 31. The deadline for switching low-speed meters (meters imprinting fewer than 45 mail pieces per minute) is March 31, 1999.

Today, the majority of the 1.6 million meters in use are electronic. To encourage holdouts to switch, the USPS plans to take such measures as no longer accepting mail stamped with mechanical meters and no longer offering a refund on returned mechanical meters after the deadline has passed.

This article was originally published in the November 1998 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Hall Of Fame.