Downstream access is the term used to describe mail which has been collected and distributed by a competitor, but is handed over to Royal Mail

Royal Mail

Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...

 mail centres for final processing onto local delivery offices, where they are delivered.

History

The ability to utilise the Royal Mail network in this way (analogous to local loop unbundling

Local loop unbundling

Local loop unbundling is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises...

 in the telecoms sector) was first introduced in 2003, ending a 350 year monopoly.

At first, there were strict limits, restricting DSA to large operations, however over time these have been relaxed further.

With the final abolition of the Royal Mail monopoly (but not its universal service obligation), DSA mail makes up an ever increasing proportion of mail received in the UK. However 99.8 percent of the mail delivered is delivered to Royal Mail to deliver for these third party suppliers. Government attempts to show competition in the postal sector have not created competition as such, but Royal Mail has lost some of the easier and more profitable section of its business. The Postal Services Commission

Postal Services Commission

The Postal Services Commission, known as Postcomm, was a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom charged with overseeing the quality and universal service of post in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2000 under the Postal Services Act 2000...

 restricts the prices at which Royal Mail sell this downstream access to third party companies.

Future developments

Increasingly, large mailers (banks etc.) are looking to work with or sidestep the DSA providers, and obtain direct access (Customer Direct Access) to Royal Mail delivery themselves.

With the end of the monopoly, some DSA providers are moving into the delivery market in major conurbations. Such bypass mail

Bypass mail

Bypass mail is the term used in the UK to describe mail which has been handled throughout its journey from sender to recipient without Royal Mail involvement, in contrast to downstream access where the final delivery is undertaken by Royal Mail-History:...

 never touches the Royal Mail network.

Another innovation is the emergence from DSA providers of so-called Hybrid mail

Hybrid mail

Hybrid mail is mail that is delivered using a combination of electronic and physical delivery. Usually, it involves digital data being transformed into physical letter items at distributed print centres located as close as possible to the final delivery addresses...

 services, which take electronic documents, produce real mailpeices & deliver them to their final destination.

DSA Providers in the UK:

• MiPost (both DSA and hybrid mail provider)
• Secured Mail
• UK Mail
• TNT Post
• City Link
• DX Network Services
• Citipost
• ONE Post
• DHL Global Mail
• FDM Plc(both DSA and hybrid mail provider)