Just because the cost of corresponding became 2 cents dearer Monday, don&8217;t expect people to stop going postal.

And while the rise of e-mail and online bill paying have more people clicking instead of licking, the U.S. Postal Service will continue to be a key player in the communication business.

People in the Miss-Lou greeted the postage increase with resignation Monday, and a little grumbling.

&8220;There&8217;s nothing we can do about it, you just have to pay it and move on,&8221; Anna Davis.

&8220;The only thing that&8217;s not going up is wages.&8221;

Gregg Foreman, senior clerk at the Vidalia Post Office, said it had been a very busy day and that people had been understanding.

&8220;People have accepted that we had to do it and don&8217;t seem to have a problem with it,&8221; he said.

In fact, one of the biggest gripes, beside the wage thing, was the size of the increase.

&8220;Why 39 cents and not 40?&8221;

Lane Pugh asked outside of the Natchez Post Office. &8220;Isn&8217;t that kind of weird how they always raise it to an odd amount?&8221;

There&8217;s a method to the madness, assured Natchez Postmaster Bill Farrior.

&8220;We&8217;re a non-profit organization, and if we went to 40 cents, we&8217;d show a profit,&8221; he said.

Besides, this increase is going solely to fund a $3.1 billion escrow account mandated by Congress.

Just as e-mail has given people another option in correspondence, online banking is presenting itself as an alternative to traditional form of paying bills.

Banks in the Miss-Lou report that paying bills online has begun to catch on with customers.

&8220;We do it, and it&8217;s very popular,&8221; Britton & Koontz Sr. Vice President Kevin Smith said. &8220;It&8217;s free and can save you money.&8221;

One of the barriers to participation is getting set up and the security concerns associated with doing business on the Internet.

&8220;I don&8217;t like it because it&8217;s not safe,&8221; Betty Wilson, of Vidalia, said. &8220;There are so many scams out there.&8221;

The banks say security is airtight and the convenience makes it addictive.

&8220;If people do it one time, they&8217;ll never want to do it any other way,&8221; Smith said.

Smith estimated somewhere in the ballpark of 30 percent of his customers use the bill-paying aspect of online banking. United Mississippi and AmSouth estimated 10 and 50 percent, respectively. While these were all guesses, all three agreed that the star of paying bills online is definitely waxing.

This doesn&8217;t necessarily signal the demise of first class postage.

When a person pays a bill online, he or she is authorizing the bank to pay a company a certain amount of money. If they company is set up to receive money electronically from the bank, it is done so.

If they&8217;re not, the bank gets out its checkbook, and mails the funds to the company, complete with a 39-cent stamp.

As more and more companies get into the online banking game, the growth rate of first class postage will continue to shrink &8212; but still grow &8212; but the postal service sees it coming and is planning, said Doug Kyle said, Postal Service manager of consumer affairs for the Mississippi district office.

&8220;The communications marketplace is more competitive than it has ever been,&8221; Kyle said. &8220;If you are going to survive, you have to adapt.&8221;

By setting up a user-friendly Web site for people to handle shipping details and making key alliances in the shipping and business communities &8212; FedEx and E-bay, among others &8212; the post office has proven itself up to the challenge.

Which is just what Congress had in mind when it set the post office up as a non-profit.

&8220;They wanted it to be a government organization, but they wanted it to act like a competitive business,&8221; Kyle said.