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Former Member
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Happy New Year!

The changes detailed in this Postal Bulletin from last week include ones we support in Presort 8.00c.10.00, which was released before the end of the year. While I haven't yet personally gone through and compared all the DMM text language to make sure it matches with what we've been told previously, this _should_ just be a summary of things we have already seen.

That said, just the summary at the top of the "New Standards" article takes 3 pages of the Bulletin, followed by the rest of the 26 pages or so in the article (one document note - it seems the links in the PDF version posted by the USPS do not work). There are sections describing the changes for Letters (mainly commercial First-Class Mail(r) letters pay at least the 2 oz. price, AKA "2nd ounce free"), and clarifications and changes for flats including some relating to mixed-class comail mailings.

For Parcels, the dimension standards are changing (will be 27x17x17 as the max instead of 34x17x17, and no more than 25 pounds instead of 35 except for Parcel Select or Parcel Return Service). Standard Mail regular parcels are separated into Marketing parcels and everything else, which will become Parcel Select Lightweight(tm) parcels; in Nonprofit, the "everything else" will stay in Standard Mail basically as they were before. This also marks the end of the temporary classification for Not Flat-Machinable (NFM) pieces.

In Package Services, there will be no more 3-cent barcode discount for BPM, Media Mail(r) and Library Mail parcels (BPM flats can still get that barcode discount). There are also changes or clarifications to affect Drop Shipments, Manifest Mailing, Confirm(r) services (being converted to "IMb(tm) Tracing" with the chance to continue using PLANET code barcodes until January 2013 IF you renew prior to January 22 - read carefully and act soon if this affects you!). And there are a number of other changes to miscellaneous services or products offered by the USPS, such as stamp fulfillment and stationery.

If you're reading this, you're still going to want to read the full article to get more detail on what is changing, and you'll also want to read the release notes with your software closely to see how the changes might affect mailing jobs you run.

Fortunately, there does not seem to be anything else that should affect Presort. There should be one more bulletin before the rate case implementation later this month, and I'd expect that one to be light on DMM revisions.

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