FAST National Deployment Begins in July
The Facility Access and Shipment Tracking (FAST) system national deployment to replace the Drop Shipment Appointment System (DSAS) will begin in July. The phased deployment begins with the New York Metro Area, with all areas phased
in over the next 5 months.
Customers drop shipping mail into facilities in the New York Metro area will start scheduling appointments in FAST on
July 11, 2005 for drops starting July 25, 2005. Please refer to http://ribbs.usps.gov; click FAST/Surface Visibility, to obtain
the full deployment schedule.
FAST Customer Readiness
Customer Registration in PostalOne!
DSAS Logon IDs will not work with FAST. All drop shippers, including those who make appointments by telephone, MUST
register for a FAST ID through PostalOne! at www.usps.com/postalone. Customers who already have a PostalOne! account
and also need access to FAST must register by calling the PostalOne! Customer Care Center at 1-800-522-9085.
Recurring Appointment Submission
All drop shippers who currently have recurring appointments MUST reapply using PS Form 6241, Recurring Appointment
Request, available at http://www.usps.com/forms/welcome.htm; click All Online PDF Forms in Numeric Order, then PS Form
6241 (PDF). Recurring appointment requests should be submitted to the Postal ServiceTM 3 weeks before the facility's scheduled start date, for example June 20 for facilities in the NY Metro Area. Once a recurring appointment is scheduled in FAST,
it will no longer be necessary to renew the request every 6 months.
- Logistics Systems, Operations, 6-9-05
FASTforward MLC to Be Retired
Effective September 30, 2005, FASTforward Mailing List
Correction (MLC)® will be retired and replaced with
NCOALink TM. In continuing its commitment to provide mailers with cost-effective and secure technology, the National
Customer Support Center (NCSC) is accepting and processing applications from current FASTforward MLC licensees for the new NCOALink technology.
Since full implementation in October 2004, NCOALink
has been successfully providing increased data security,
protection of customer information privacy, and ease of use
for its licensees. Its data security enables it to be used by
more mailers, more often, and more conveniently. Its innovative design also protects customer information privacy by
limiting what can be seen. With the increased data security
and customer information privacy available with NCOALink,
the use of this important tool by mailers is growing rapidly.
FASTforward MLC licensees must complete the application
process to become licensed for the new NCOALink technology.
Many licensees have already taken advantage of the opportunity and applied
for the NCOALink license. New NCOALink licensees
will benefit from now having 18 months of change-of-address data available,
a valuable increase over the 13 months of data previously provided under
FASTforward. In addition, licensees will enjoy ownership of all
hardware and the discontinuation of the FASTforward MLC "black
box," which has been rendered obsolete with the conversion to NCOALink.
- Address Management,
Intelligent Mail and Address Quality, 6-9-05
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