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Just too late for the busiest time of the year, the Royal Mail has introduced a service that allows you to print postage stamps onto envelopes and labels direct from your PC. Since Christmas 2001, when the Royal Mail's TV advertising campaign featured Elton John shopping online, we have been told that the Royal Mail is 'The Real Network'. I'm not sure that I would agree with the word 'the', because every time you run a tap, switch on a light, turn on a gas fire, drive to work, ride on a train or (sorry, Royal Mail) surf the internet, you are using real networks.

However, that does not take anything away from the fact that the Royal Mail provides a remarkable service. Imagine the Victorians had not set up the system in the first place; if you suggested creating an organisation today to enable a small package to be sent anywhere in the UK (around 27 million addresses) with a good chance of it arriving the next day, and all for the princely sum of 28p, most people would say you were a postage stamp short of a full sheet. Thinking about it, if we were starting from scratch today, an alternative solution would be to send everything digitally via the internet; and for those who do not have direct access there could be a network of local automated print bureaux where you could log in, check your mail, and print your bank statements, love letters and junk mail (maybe).

But today we do have post offices, franking machines and self-adhesive stamps. We also have commemorative stamps that are collected (rather than posted) and must therefore contribute substantially to the Royal Mail's bottom line - and heaven knows that bottom line needs all the help it can get. It is therefore not surprising that the Royal Mail is charging £4.99 a month or £49.99 a year (that's the equivalent of around 25 or 250 first-class stamps) for the privilege of printing your own.

Customers can create their SmartStamps using the Royal Mail's software, so logos can be added, seasonal messages incorporated, or images inserted showing off your family/pet/home/wit (there is no obligation to print the Queen's head). I wonder if the best of these will become collectors' items in the same way as conventional stamps and phone cards? Maybe somebody will set up a web site from where you can download ready-made graphics, such as Brian the snail from the Magic Roundabout...

While the Royal Mail appears to be targeting small businesses and home office users of stamps, SmartStamps may actually have a bigger impact on the market for franking machines. Envelopes and labels can already have company logos or messages printed as part of the franking process, and services exist whereby credits can be downloaded digitally. It is likely that the direct cost of using the SmartStamp system will be lower than that of franking machines, and the ability to combine mail-merging with printing the postage could avoid double-handling and thereby reduce administration costs.

To prevent the fraudulent use of bogus SmartStamps created by computer users, security measures are integrated rather like those employed in the NetStamps available in the USA (I'm not sure if it uses the same underlying technology, but the product description certainly sounds similar). This service has been available in the USA since 1998 and the numbers suggest that a comparable operation here in the UK has potential: a counter on the www.stamps.com web site shows how many stamps have been printed by customers to date, which, at the time of writing, is in excess of 245,000,000 and rising rapidly.

So the Royal Mail is dragging its 'Real Network' into the twenty-first century, but it can only do so because of the existence of the 'e-real network.' Perhaps next Christmas the TV advertisements will show Elton John printing addresses and stamps directly onto envelopes. And if Elton's SmartStamps don't contain the Queen's head, he could always incorporate a picture of himself.