An internet consultancy firm this week launched a service that will enable anyone with access to a web browser to send a letter anywhere in the world. Now, yet another buzzword -'L-mail' - may soon become the common term used to describe sending physical letters via a website using any internet service provider (ISP).

L-Mail.com offers consumers and businesses the ability to send postal letters via any internet-enabled PC through a simple web interface.

Users simply type and format their letter in a browser, click submit before it’s printed and put in traditional postal mail systems from one of an initial seven locations around the world.

QiQ, L-Mail's developer, claims the service will save users time and money over using traditional post. Letters will frequently be cheaper through L-Mail than traditional mail. For example, a three-page letter to the United States will cost 64p fully inclusive. Postage alone for a 20g letter from the UK to the USA is 68p. L-Mails can be sent to any address on the planet via the initial seven printing and posting locations:

• Australia - Sydney
• Canada - British Columbia
• Spain - Madrid
• UK - Edinburgh
• UK - Leicester
• UK - London
• US - Ellensburg (West Coast)
• US - New York (East Coast)

QiQ hopes that users will benefit from using the service to speed up delivery of overseas letters as well as save people time queuing at the post office.

This may be a convenient way for travelling people to send letters but it remains to be seen if office-based users will adopt this technology. ®