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National Postcodes to be introduced
Comments
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In a country with a rich heritage of placenames, who wants to live at 400 Route L2019?
The postcode should serve the people, not require reorganisation of the population to suit the postcode.
In the same posting I have also mentioned the option of creating a road name based on the townland name - perhaps bringing in a local natural feature (eg river, mountain, lake etc), and or adding N, S, E and West, to create road names that have a place in the tradition of the country. However looking at a map, it is much easier to fit in a road number than a road name. I have no preferences either way.
There is also the option for the householder to add useless information above the 400 ROUTE L2019 - eg on the previous line call their house THE WHITE HOUSE/An Teach Bán or whatever takes their fancy. However it would be ignored in the sorting process and would be of no use until you got to the drive entrance, and only if the person in question put the name of their house up on display.
Even the German Parliament building (Bundestag) has a street name, and building number - ie
Platz der Republik 1
DE-11011 Berlin
While one is not suggesting that the average Irish rural house is a lesser object than the German Federal Parliament, it is less well known. No matter how well known it is a matter of discipline in terms of information provision to provide these data.
If the phone numbering system was made as complicated as Irish mailing addresses, you might have a County code, wait for a second dial tone, dial the town code, wait for a dial tone (or a townland tone) dial the phone number of the required party. Such a numbering plan would be laughable and smell of Ireland 40 years ago, when these procedures were done manually by operators at each stage. And phone calls cost a fortune as a result.
While Irish phone numbers have moved on (though the country is still stuck with NDCs (area codes)), Irish postal addresses remain stuck in 1066 or later times. I suspect prior to Norman times there was very little in terms of location data naming in Ireland. Aside perhaps from what monks recorded in handwritten books like the Book of Kells etc? Who knows?0 -
Sam Russell wrote: »There is also '0' (zero) that is unused. In a post code system this could be used for non-geographic addresses such as Revenue, Government generally, very large companies, and any public body having huge post, etc.
In Finland they have taken it even further
eg
FI-00045 Nokia Group - ie they have created a "town" called Nokia Group with an 00045 code. Companies could pay a premium for such addresses. Where a company has multiple addresses, they just add a po box number above the company town. Modern sorting systems can look-up in the database
PO Box 145
FI-00045 Nokia Group
and convert it into a real address which could be in any city or town.
eg Eircom billing enquiries and cheque processing might be at
PO Box 200
IE-00234 EIRCOM
and mail to this po box gets auto routed to a PO Box in the Aran Islands where the mail is processed. With no delay in delivery because the translation of the address would take place in milliseconds within the address recognition process in the sorting system. The same technology is used for automated change of address letter re-direction for anybody. In this case the sorting machine applies a label with the new address over the old one.0 -
Schadenfreudia wrote: »Longest/oldest thread in the history of Boards!
No intention of reading it...so can anyone give me the shortcut answer.....when are the new postcodes being introduced?
It shows that there is a lot more interest in the country getting the system right from the start, than the powers that be might think!0 -
In the same posting I have also mentioned the option of creating a road name based on the townland name - perhaps bringing in a local natural feature (eg river, mountain, lake etc), and or adding N, S, E and West, to create road names that have a place in the tradition of the country. However looking at a map, it is much easier to fit in a road number than a road name. I have no preferences either way.
As I said, the technology should support delivery to people's addresses, not give them new addresses.0 -
As I said, the technology should support delivery to people's addresses, not give them new addresses.
At the moment the "system" does this. However 50% of the points of delivery have no address. It is impossible to deliver or visit them without local knowledge, asking one or more people for directions, spending time on a mobile phone while driving (illegal) taking turn here, turn there instructions.
In the past your phone number might have been Ballybog 234. You may have loved that phone number. Then automation arrived, and Ballybog 234 became 098 20234 or whatever. The "new" number is more efficient and cheaper and did not involve manual intervention. Ireland was among the last countries in Europe to fully automate its phone network, aside perhaps from Albania*. So postal addressing is no different in terms of foot dragging.
Time must move on. Ireland will be one of the last countries in Europe to have an address system for all buildings - assuming the job given to the postcoders is re-defined. As it stands, Ireland is in African / third world territory when it comes to mailing addresses.
*I might be doing a disservice to Albania here - I am just making a wild guess because it is so difficult to identify a country without addresses for all points of delivery no matter how far one goes back in the last century.0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 19030
In Finland they have taken it even further
eg
FI-00045 Nokia Group - ie they have created a "town" called Nokia Group with an 00045 code. Companies could pay a premium for such addresses. Where a company has multiple addresses, they just add a po box number above the company town. Modern sorting systems can look-up in the database
PO Box 145
FI-00045 Nokia Group
and convert it into a real address which could be in any city or town.
eg Eircom billing enquiries and cheque processing might be at
PO Box 200
IE-00234 EIRCOM
and mail to this po box gets auto routed to a PO Box in the Aran Islands where the mail is processed. With no delay in delivery because the translation of the address would take place in milliseconds within the address recognition process in the sorting system. The same technology is used for automated change of address letter re-direction for anybody. In this case the sorting machine applies a label with the new address over the old one.
..... err .... why did we not think of that?
We are a high tech country with leading edge technology - the envy of the world. ( ... or so it says on some government website!)0 -
At the moment the "system" does this. However 50% of the points of delivery have no address. It is impossible to deliver or visit them without local knowledge, asking one or more people for directions, spending time on a mobile phone while driving (illegal) taking turn here, turn there instructions.
In the past your phone number might have been Ballybog 234. You may have loved that phone number. Then automation arrived, and Ballybog 234 became 098 20234 or whatever. The "new" number is more efficient and cheaper and did not involve manual intervention. Ireland was among the last countries in Europe to fully automate its phone network, aside perhaps from Albania*. So postal addressing is no different in terms of foot dragging.
The Irish telephone numbering system was decently designed, so should the address system be decently designed and your proposals do not meet this criterion.*I might be doing a disservice to Albania here - I am just making a wild guess because it is so difficult to identify a country without addresses for all points of delivery no matter how far one goes back in the last century.
UAE?0 -
It is little different than the 4 digit phone numbers that companies can pay a premium to get allocated in France. The system looks up the four digit number in a database, and finds the full national number that is applicable having regard to the calling location of the person.
SNCF (rail) has 3635. You dial the number and it costs about 30c per minute. It connects to a voice server which you can speak to. If a train is stopped between stations, and you are wondering what is happening you can call 3635 and say TRAFIC and supply the train number (like a flight number) from your train ticket, and it will tell you the reason for the stop and how long you will be delayed. If you have a reserved seat prepaid, the same number allows you to cancel the reservation, if you get stuck in a taxi in traffic, on the way to the station, and get your money back. If you want to speak to someone in a particular station, you say the name of the station and you get connected to that station’s phone system.
Carrefour have a number of short code contact numbers including 3235. You can ask for a refund or talk to a store. When connected to the store prompt, it asks you which department. If you say “electromanager” you will be connected to the electrical department. Which is typically a guy kitted out with a DECT wireless phone on roller skates. You can ask him if he has a Sony model number X8500B 4K tv in stock and he will roll over to the shelf and might say that there are 4 in stock for 1299 EUR each, eg in the Antibes store. If there are none in Antibes, but 2 in the Nice store, he can give you this info. In this application Carrefour is taking the call centre out of it and letting you talk to the person on the shop floor in whatever branch is near you. He can answer your questions looking at the product – how many HDMI connectors does it have etc.
Four digit numbers in France can cost from free to premium rate. The cost is advised in every advertisement showing the number.
The only disadvantage of four digit numbers is that they can’t be called from outside of France – except if you have a French VoIP phone channel or they publish a +33 number as an alternative for people outside the country.
Air France is 3654. A one stop phone number for the entire group.
The French four digit numbering system totally ignores geographic location within France.
It amazes me that more countries don't offer short numbers to big companies for a fee.0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 19030
The Irish telephone numbering system was decently designed, so should the address system be decently designed and your proposals do not meet this criterion.
If the phone numbering was well designed, and post code is based on it (with required modifications) that too will be well designed. A 5 digit post code would be adequate for location and post code. Telephone numbers are related to echanges and exchanges are related to population density. A perfect fit, I would have though.
Post codes used 100 years ago (D1, D2, D4, etc) are clearly a nonsense starting point.0 -
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At the moment the "system" does this. However 50% of the points of delivery have no address. It is impossible to deliver or visit them without local knowledge, asking one or more people for directions, spending time on a mobile phone while driving (illegal) taking turn here, turn there instructions.
In the past your phone number might have been Ballybog 234. You may have loved that phone number. Then automation arrived, and Ballybog 234 became 098 20234 or whatever. The "new" number is more efficient and cheaper and did not involve manual intervention. Ireland was among the last countries in Europe to fully automate its phone network, aside perhaps from Albania*.
To be fair, the Irish telecommunications network was actually quite advanced by the 1980s and it definitely wasn't the last place in Europe or the developed world to have a couple of local operator-switched exchanges. Ireland's last one was Mountshannon in Co. Clare in 1987. Australia was 1991.
France only got fully automatic service in 1979 and the UK in 1976, the US was in the early 80s and Canada later.
Ireland's network was actually one of the first in the world to adopt a fully digital strategy and actually had some of the world's first large scale use of digital exchanges kicking off in 1980/81.
Before that, it would have had fairly advanced crossbar exchanges in most urban areas, and that's probably where the numbering originates.
Irish phone numbers actually follow a fairly sensible logic, which was all about crossbar call routing. Each digit could be analysed by electromechanical relay logic (kind of mechanical computers) known as registers and markers and they then figured out the routing across a switching system.
So, the numbering had to follow some kind of sensible logic.
Since things went completely digital, area codes are probably totally irrelevant in reality.
What held up development of Ireland's telecom network in the 60s/70s was that it was run directly by a Government Department. There was no "telephone company", P&T was an actual Department!
That led to a lot of problems.
1) If P&T made a profit (surplus), then the temptation was that government ministers would plough that into some other area like Health or Education. So, the organisation never had cash available to invest without political approval and didn't run like a company (unlike other semistates like ESB). So, it really couldn't plan anything!
2) Political interference was a major issue. TDs were getting involved with everything, down to connecting individual customers' lines to exchanges. So, there was a huge incentive for all sorts of nonsense and clientelism.
You also had to get political approval for all investment and the government saw money going into telephone exchanges and equipment as expensive and not as high priority as some other pressing political issues like health or whatever else they were up to. So, P&T's cash reserves just got snaffled up into other areas way too often.
The organisation was also overstaffed to an absolutely insane level.
The whole thing reached crisis point in the 1970s when the P&T network was starting to become so slow to upgrade that it was damaging business and inward investment and it became a serious political hot potato. That's when they finally made the very long overdue decision to create a commercial semistate to take over from the Department.
When Telecom Eireann was setup, it was the first time the system was run on a commercial basis. They also had a company called ITI (Irish Telecommunications Investments) which was the precursor to Telecom and would have raised funds for network upgrades in the late 70s.
All in all though, the numbering system they came up with in the 60s/70s/80s was pretty logical and sensible and has stood the test of time very well.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 19030
I do not think the outcome with the postcodes will be so fortuitous as it was with the phone sytem.
I think we will get a dog's breakfast instead.0 -
I think the bigger issue in Ireland is a lack of unique addresses.
That's a legacy of An Post and the local authorities failing to grasp the idea that addresses are necessary.
Confusing addresses exist in the UK too and postcodes haven't resolved the issue.
I spend ages trying to find a business address in London recently.
Address was like:
2nd Floor Addressless House,
Very Long Street,
London N19 XYZ
It was very hard to find as the building has no number on the street.0 -
France only got fully automatic service in 1979 and the UK in 1976, the US was in the early 80s and Canada later.
Ireland's network was actually one of the first in the world to adopt a fully digital strategy and actually had some of the world's first large scale use of digital exchanges kicking off in 1980/81.
While we are diverting slightly, to put the record straight, France was one of the first countries to come up with working digital switching in the 1970s with the Alcatel E-10 B system - which was subsequently used by the Dept of P & T, as a system 2 - an alternative to Ericsson AXE which was system 1.
It took about five years of hard effort (by yours truly and others) to get the government of the day to only buy digital switching fabric. During this period they wasted millions on crossbar switches - in the same way as they are wasting millions today on trying to keep copper alive instead of replacing it with FTTH, and millions trying to create and impose an ill-conceived postcode system on the country.
Meanwhile Britain spent millions trying to create its own digital switch (system X). It failed, and had to rely on Ericsson and others.
Irish phone numbers actually follow a fairly sensible logic, which was all about crossbar call routing. Each digit could be analysed by electromechanical relay logic (kind of mechanical computers) known as registers and markers and they then figured out the routing across a switching system.
Irish phone numbering is no different in structure to that in most European countries - aside from GB (where it is alpha based like the proposed Eircode) and the USA where it was "rotary dial" based - ie 212 = New York - 213 = Los angeles - big city area codes little effort on a rotary dial. GB and USA are now in a numbering quagmire with many cities needing multiple national destination codes.
Not to mention going mobile. Many countries (eg Denmark, Norway, Spain and Portugal) just have 8 or 9 digit numbers for everything with no NDC. In the same way as you have no area code in front of your email address.Since things went completely digital, area codes are probably totally irrelevant in reality.0 -
While we are diverting slightly, to put the record straight, France was one of the first countries to come up with working digital switching in the 1970s with the Alcatel E-10 B system - which was subsequently used by the Dept of P & T, as a system 2 - an alternative to Ericsson AXE which was system 1.
It took about five years of hard effort (by yours truly and others) to get the government of the day to only buy digital switching fabric. During this period they wasted millions on crossbar switches - in the same way as they are wasting millions today on trying to keep copper alive instead of replacing it with FTTH, and millions trying to create and impose an ill-conceived postcode system on the country.
Meanwhile Britain spent millions trying to create its own digital switch (system X). It failed, and had to rely on Ericsson and others.
Irish phone numbering is no different in structure to that in most European countries - aside from GB (where it is alpha based like the proposed Eircode) and the USA where it was "rotary dial" based - ie 212 = New York - 213 = Los angeles - big city area codes little effort on a rotary dial. GB and USA are now in a numbering quagmire with many cities needing multiple national destination codes.
Not to mention going mobile. Many countries (eg Denmark, Norway, Spain and Portugal) just have 8 or 9 digit numbers for everything with no NDC. In the same way as you have no area code in front of your email address.
Biggest waste of money and effort in that period was Philips' lashing billions in today's terms into a system called PRX which was computerised but used micro relays to do the switching!? This was in the mid 80s, long after digital was established.
The French E10 system was launched way back in 1972 but for some daft reason PTT France also spent millions on Pentaconta crossbars in bigger cities while only using E10 in rural areas as the conservative techies and bureaucrats didn't believe digital was going to be reliable! They ultimately used a mix of E10 and Ericsson AXE too.
Logical thing for Ireland's numbering would be 9-digits without area codes.
Dublin 01 999 9999 becoming 319 999 999
Cork 021 999 9999 beginning 219 999 999
Mobiles 087 xxx xxxx becoming 87x xxx xxx
1800 xxxxxx becoming 800 xxx xxx
1550 xxxxxx becoming 900 xxx xxx
And so on... It's far simpler!
To get back on topic tho :
To get postcodes right, we need actual addresses though.
You can't just have a system of utterly daft addresses with codes overlaid on top without any logic that is human readable.
I'm sure this is going to be a total mess too.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 19030
The advantage of using area codes is the ability for a PABX to deny 'trunk' calls. If all calls are local, then that problem disappears.Logical thing for Ireland's numbering would be 9-digits without area codes.
Dublin 01 999 9999 becoming 319 999 999
Cork 021 999 9999 beginning 219 999 999
Mobiles 087 xxx xxxx becoming 87x xxx xxx
1800 xxxxxx becoming 800 xxx xxx
1550 xxxxxx becoming 900 xxx xxx
And so on... It's far simpler!
Also non-geographic numbers need to be charged as per local numbers or to be detected by cost control systems in a PABX envionment. It is in any event unacceptable that 1890 and 1818 numbers feed some of the fees for the calls to the recipient - as per premium rate numbers.
I remember when international numbers were dialed using the prefix 18xxx as per France, so it must have been as a result of the Alcatel influence.0 -
Sam Russell wrote: »The advantage of using area codes is the ability for a PABX to deny 'trunk' calls. If all calls are local, then that problem disappears.
Also non-geographic numbers need to be charged as per local numbers or to be detected by cost control systems in a PABX envionment. It is in any event unacceptable that 1890 and 1818 numbers feed some of the fees for the calls to the recipient - as per premium rate numbers.
I remember when international numbers were dialed using the prefix 18xxx as per France, so it must have been as a result of the Alcatel influence.
You can still do that. Local in Madrid is 91x xxx xxx for example. Mobiles can be clearly identified as 6xx xxx xxx ... Premium rate 90x xxx xxx and so on.
In reality all of those countries have area codes, they're just not optional.
The landline system as we know it is going to rapidly disappear anyway. Very few people are paying for 'long distance' anyway. It's a bit of an anachronism at this stage.
It would nearly make more sense to just have two prefixes : mobile vs landline.
But we're way way OT
Back to postal codes...0 -
Biggest waste of money and effort in that period was Philips' lashing billions in today's terms into a system called PRX which was computerised but used micro relays to do the switching!? This was in the mid 80s, long after digital was established.
At the expense of this digression, I think it has important implications for the postcode system and most other strategic government and corporate planning issues.
Philips didn’t ask the right questions, when it came to “improving” telephone switching. From memory they just took the old fashioned electromechanical relay and put it in a small glass tube (like some medications – eg for injection). It was analog technology, made smaller. While everything else was going digital – CDs, DVDs, PCM transmission of phone traffic, and latterly TVs, radio etc.
Philips also installed a computerised traffic control system in Cork city probably in the early 1970s. I was a child at the time. It too asked the wrong question when it came to improving traffic flow. Its algorithm was based on keeping the city empty of cars by creating queues of cars trying to enter the central area. Ie rationing access – and promoting departures of vehicles, by giving them lots of green to get them out. It moved the problem of congestion out of the central area, and created queues of vehicles on roads approaching the city. I still remember seeing it in the first week. No delays in the city – but monster queues on access routes.
The Swiss have got traffic control largely sorted, because they started off by asking the right question. How can a car dense rich society keep people moving efficiently in urban areas? The answer they came up with is high quality, reliable, frequent public transport, that gets priority at every road junction. And while I am deviating from the topic, I’m trying to show how important it is for the people in power to get the fundamental decision making right, from day one.
It has been a massive success and the Swiss big issue today is manufacturing enough double deck suburban trains that can carry people’s bikes and provide them with tables to surf the internet while the train carrying close to 1,500 people (mostly seated, unlike underground systems) takes the to and from work etc. And increasing platform and station sizes to deal with the huge flood of people and trains who have become addicted to their integrated public transport system.
The Swiss traffic control system (eg as in Zürich) is based on priority. A tram driver approaching a “red light” doesn’t touch the brakes – because he knows with absolute certainty that the lights will turn green for him about 10 m before the lights – even at 50 km/h. Ditto for buses. There are no cycles or phases as in conventional traffic control systems. Instead a computer acts like an intelligent traffic cop at the junction. It tells the junction control box what to do, second by second, and collects data from road sensors located all over the place. A cardio ambulance might get priority over a tram. Giving it just a few seconds to get through the junction, and the system switches back to giving public transport priority. A traffic cop with super powers of intelligence and info in terms of advance info on what is coming at each road leading to the junction.
If you are sitting in a car, in Zürich, and trams and buses are flying by – if you have any brain in your head, you will probably be prompted to ask, why shouldn’t I be on that tram, bus whatever? Zürich has got to the stage where nearly 80% of journeys are by public transport. While it is counter-intuitive for a car owner to want public transport to get priority, you end up with a city where if you have to take the car out (eg to collect a new TV or something else heavy), there are few if any traffic delay obstacles. And almost zero drunk driving because people go out for the night on public transport, fewer accidents / insurance claims. A virtuous circle. Most of this public transport is electricity powered from green energy, so the air in Swiss cities is extremely clean. Walking to the local bus or tram stop in clean air means fewer medical problems.
The system they use VS-Plus was developed by one of the universities in Zürich – eth.ch – more at http://www.vs-plus.com/xml_1/internet/en/intro.cfm Because there is no other traffic control system on the planet that addresses the problem in a fundamental way. If you don’t offer Mercedes-Benz quality public transport – people will not leave their cars at home. This means not only frequency of service, clean and smooth, no time wasted at stops – five or six doors typically open at a stop for quick on and off. No ticket checking (aside from random on board inspections with a big fine for fare dodgers). By doing this, people provided enough traffic on the public transport system so you can run tram services every 5 minutes. Which adds to the virtuous circle. Zürich has about 18 tram lines –v- 2 in Dublin. Almost no buses in the city centre, as they clog up the space. It has about 10 high capacity suburban rail routes offering multiple service choices in terms of stations served numbered S1 to probably S40.
Network maps: http://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/vbz/de/index/fahrplan/liniennetzplaene.html
No metro because regular commuters don't want to be stuck in a hold in the ground twice a day.The French E10 system was launched way back in 1972 but for some daft reason PTT France also spent millions on Pentaconta crossbars in bigger cities while only using E10 in rural areas as the conservative techies and bureaucrats didn't believe digital was going to be reliable! They ultimately used a mix of E10 and Ericsson AXE too.
Pentaconta was from America’s ITT. Obsolete. Politically driven decision. One can’t expect politicians to be experts in everything, I suppose. Maybe a bit of corruption too? Who knows?
Agreed. Dublin could have 30n nnn nnn space for expansionLogical thing for Ireland's numbering would be 9-digits without area codes.
Dublin 01 999 9999 becoming 319 999 999
Cork 021 999 9999 beginning 219 999 999
Mobiles 087 xxx xxxx becoming 87x xxx xxx
One could put near Dublin NDCs into the 3 system too
Eg 045 becomes 345 + same 6 digit local number (just replacing the initial 0 with 3)
0404 2nnnn becomes 340 42nn nnn (just replacing the initial 0 with 3)
(perhaps a nice to have rather than a required change)
Yes.1800 xxxxxx becoming 800 xxx xxx
1550 xxxxxx becoming 900 xxx xxxAnd so on... It's far simpler!
It would also make phone number presentation better and ease of remembering better, and would make international calls to IRL much faster – because of a fixed number length. (ie the other network would not be waiting for more digits to be entered before setting up the connection). It would be also less complicated for numerically challenged people (ie removing the 0 after the +353)
A 9 digit number would pave the way for standardisation of many issues.
Three groups of three digits
eg
234 444 222
Spain – pop around 50 million people can work with 9 digits, and most of the Spanish numbering space is waiting for new allocations.
5xx xxx xxx Personal numbers (eg 078 in Ireland)
8xx xxx xxx Geographical expansion
800 xxx xxx Freephone
80x xxx xxx Shared cost
90x xxx xxx Shared cost or free
91 to 99x xxx xxx Geographic
Leaving 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 free for tomorrow. Nicely compacted into 9 digits for 50 million people.
Why does IRL require up to 11 digits? The more digits the dumber the thinking.
In Ireland you have the issue of mobile voicemail – eg
+353 58x nnn nnnn.
This implies that every Irish mobile number is taking up at least two numbering spaces – ie the mobile number and the voicemail number with a 5 added after the 08n access code.
In most other countries they appear to use caller ID for voicemail. If a call to +353 8nx xxx xxxx has to be diverted to voicemail it should be bounced back to its SIM card issuing network with a C7 signal indicating that this call needs to go to voicemail for the number in question.
While this is a massive deviation from postcodes, the principles are similar.
1. Keep it simple – 4 or 5 digits
2. Do not ignore geography (ie road names and house numbers etc). Squirting randomised postcodes over a townland is like pouring grated cheese on a pasta. It is anyone’s guess where the particles will fall.
3. The closer an addressing system represents physical reality, the better. Ie no random codes.
4. Numbers are more universal than alpha characters – more machine readable, global (Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Japanese read numbers – but many have problems with A to Z).
5. Numeric postcodes can be conveniently entered into phone dials, ticket machines.
6. Numeric postcodes with geographic relationships make more sense than alpha – eg all codes beginning with 5 are in the South East. Alpha codes would mean all sorts of randomisation like WAT and ROS and xxx etc are in the South East – which defies logic.
7. 99% of the world uses all numeric postcodes. The exceptions being GB and CDN. Even Canada tries to attach geo relevance to the alpha code Newfoundland is A (most Easterly) and British Colombia is V and Yukon is Y (Most westerly). Britain is the only country with zero relationship between the postcode and physical reality.I'm sure this is going to be a total mess too
You can't just have a system of utterly daft addresses with codes overlaid on top without any logic that is human readable.
Political heads must pay the price if this zombie air-head code is allowed to be put in place.
Postcodes are a big part of the internet age. More people are shopping online in most countries. The issue now is for internet shopping and home delivery to be made more fluid in Ireland. Amazon has a few sites in big countries – eg Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Spain. Yet amazon is not really in the European single market. There is no real amazon.eu. ie a site that is priced in EUR and speaks your language. A large gap in the market, for national Amazon lookalikes in the very many smaller European countries. Which means more parcels to deliver requiring better logistics – the key to which is a logical, simple postcode system.0 -
If you want to expand this thread to look at inefficient coding systems just look at the Irish car registration numbering system, some Dublin plates have 10 characters on them, get rid of the three digit year and substitute some of the high value digits with letters and the plate would shrink to about 6 or 7 characters.0
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It is little different than the 4 digit phone numbers that companies can pay a premium to get allocated in France. The system looks up the four digit number in a database, and finds the full national number that is applicable having regard to the calling location of the person.
It amazes me that more countries don'
We have it for all the telecom providers help desks in Ireland 19XX .. They could make money by offering short codes to other companies though.
1800, 1850, 1890 etc all work on that intelligent network principle too.
When you call, the system looks up a database much like the way www.boards.ie causes a DNS server to look up an IP address.
They no longer necessarily translate to a geographic number though. Often these days they'd simply have a VoIP trunk to a call centre or VoIP to individual stores/offices.
Things have be become much more virtual and flexible.
That same database look up is also what allows you to move your number to another provider. When you make a call these days the exchange looks up where that number is hosted and routes accordingly. In reality your phone number is just a user friendly cosmetic thing they'll refers to an end point on a network somewhere. Until number portability became the norm, the routing was still largely based on analysing the digits dialled.
So you should really be able to assign an 021 number in Donegal and an 01 number in Galway. There's really no technical reason for area codes and it can already be done with VoIP. They just still have legacy charging plans based on them and the POTS system is probably stone age digital technology at this stage at least at local exchange level anyway. Same all over the world though. 1970s and 80s digital switching concepts integrated into 21st century all IP next generation networks.
In reality all you should need to distinguish is Landline or Mobile.
My home office landline for example is provided using VoIP. I've an 021, 01 and +32 2 (Brussels) number and we can bounce calls around between colleagues, transfer to external numbers like they're PBX extensions, include our mobiles in hunt groups and configure everything through a web portal.
I'm going way off topic here but, it just demonstrates how drastically a technology can change.
My fear with post codes is that were going to implement a system that would have been useful in the 1980s
Ireland needs consistent, logical addresses that make sense to humans.
Databases can already be looked up without a code. In most cases House name + county will find me any Irish address in Google Maps quite reliably.
What we're missing is a logical way of finding a building while driving around without GPS and logical address formats that allow OCR scanning for mail sorting without enormous expense.
House numbers and a simple post code would have sufficed and been far more useful than some mad complex database.
Or a fully geographic coordinate based system like Open Postcode or Loc8 would have provided a very deep level of new uses for codes as they could be used to define any point on a map rather than being a database or buildings.
I'm not sure that dealing with Ireland's mystical folklore based address non-system by overlaying it with a database look up code makes much sense at all.
Like Philips we're finding a solution to a different problem that we don't need to solve.0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 19030
Deleted User wrote: »If you want to expand this thread to look at inefficient coding systems just look at the Irish car registration numbering system, some Dublin plates have 10 characters on them, get rid of the three digit year and substitute some of the high value digits with letters and the plate would shrink to about 6 or 7 characters.
You mean like they have in NI, or we used to have here? The year code was intoduced because of SIMI lobbying to increase new car sales. The NCT system came in as a result of the EU regulations after our derogation ran out, but its actual implementation I suspect was a result of SIMI and the company carrying out the NCT looking out for their own interests.
Who is out there lobbying for postcodes? In particular, who benefits from the proposed system?0 -
If I were designing it I would have started by using the road numbers.
So you'd just have something like:
Mrs Murphy,
Ballyblah House,
Co Waterford
R768-4090
R769 is existing road
4xxx is 4 km along road
090 is the building.
Road signage already there for N, R and L roads.
It would suit Irish ribbon development.
Most housing estates could be numbered as L roads. So just include the house number
In Cities and towns, number the streets.
An Post
GPO
10 O'Connell St
Dublin
D1001-1010
D1 is Dublin 1
001 is a street number
1xxx is a block number (between two junctions, no grid necessary)
10 is the tenth building.
You could do similar for Cork, Limerick, Galway and maybe some of the bigger towns by adding letters like A for Athlone, and so on.
To me something like that would be genuinely useful for both people and machines.
You wouldn't need that many codes in rural areas and you could increase the block size as densities along roads decreases.
New housing estates would get their own road number.
In urban areas you could allow overlap where densities were very tight and allow sharing of codes by neighbouring buildings to avoid crazy long codes. The 1st line of the address would find it though. You'd only be within a 200m of the address.
To me anyway, something more like that would make sense as it integrates with the road maps and existing signage. People would be able to use it with GPS by looking up road numbers and people could use it by just reading maps and signs too.
It also wouldn't really need a database as the codes describe physical locations on a road not a building really.
What's being proposed sounds more like PPS numbers for buildings.0 -
The NI system is the same as the old system here, it was just extended to four digits, a variation of the old system without the year code would work well here as well.Sam Russell wrote: »You mean like they have in NI, or we used to have here? The year code was intoduced because of SIMI lobbying to increase new car sales.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 19030
Deleted User wrote: »The NI system is the same as the old system here, it was just extended to four digits, a variation of the old system without the year code would work well here as well.
It did work here, but SIMI wanted a way of identifying the year of the car so people would be conned into renewing a perfectly good car with one the neighbours would recognise as new. All that happened was we ran out of numbers and the simplicity of adding a digit (or could have been a letter) escaped the people who decide these matters (the lobbyists).0 -
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Or an old fashioned car registration number for buildings - "EPI 253" tells you nothing, unless you have access to the database of car registrations. If you know the code "system" they used it might tell you the county where it was first purchased.Property tax, water charges, broadcast charges etc...0 -
If I were designing it I would have started by using the road numbers.
So you'd just have something like:
Mrs Murphy,
Ballyblah House,
Co Waterford
R768-4090
R769 is existing road
4xxx is 4 km along road
090 is the building.
Every road does not have a road number, and shouldn't need a county or province name in a postal address - because there is no duplication of town names within a postal district. There is no consistency of numbering format for Irish road numbers - they range from N1 to L99999 theoretically. The road number is bringing letters into the code which reduces OCR and global readability. And you are putting too much into the postcode - ie the address is highly reliant on reading each character of the postcode (or not making typos) precisely.
While you don't have randomization, there is a risk of going down the "re-invent the wheel" alley that eircode seems to have travelled carrying a case of Heineken to help in the decision making process, as the people responsible for same seem to have done.0 -
And it involved creating a separate collection bureaucracy from that to be used for water and even electricity.Property Tax already has an individual 10 digital Property ID for every property in the country.
All wide-scale premises related billing could be operated by a single billing agency, which has access to a comprehensive database of properties, sending out a single bill covering a multitude of services and charges. While I think domestic water metering is ill conceived (the cost of installing all the meters and reading them and billing etc) I do agree with a payment for water service to cover the energy used and pipeline maintenance and water purification costs. 60% of drinking water produced is wasted in public pipeline infrastructure leaks. Metering will only reduce consumption by about 15%. According to a recent survey by UBS, Dublin and Cork have the largest water leakage rates of any European city. The same person/mechanism that reads the electricity meter could read the water meter, now that the country seems to be so invested in water metering. How much did Irish Water spend on its billing infrastructure? Probably close to 100 million. Repeated over and over for ESB etc etc.
Customers would have one online web based interface to view their bills, make payment, and adjust services. The private waste collection companies could also subscribe to the same service. Even cable TV and phone service. It would save all the duplication of billing systems, multiple bank payments every month etc. And reduce fraud etc. You could even pay the monthly fee for your postcode allocation this way!
Excuse the digression... but the eircode has a lot of badly thought through elements in it too.0 -
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Every road has a road number, it's just the L roads are generally badly publicised.Every road does not have a road number, and shouldn't need a county or province name in a postal address - because there is no duplication of town names within a postal district. There is no consistency of numbering format for Irish road numbers - they range from N1 to L99999 theoretically. The road number is bringing letters into the code which reduces OCR and global readability. And you are putting too much into the postcode - ie the address is highly reliant on reading each character of the postcode (or not making typos) precisely.
While you don't have randomization, there is a risk of going down the "re-invent the wheel" alley that eircode seems to have travelled carrying a case of Heineken to help in the decision making process, as the people responsible for same seem to have done.
The letter for the road number is not needed, as National roads are 1 or 2 digits, Regional roads are 3 digits, local roads are 4 or 5.
SpaceTime has a great idea in the road/distance along it, method of postcode.
It retains the existing address, and adds information if needed to find the address. The postcode can be figured out offline, without using gps.
It would depend on roads being labelled, with their road number, so someone can see *that* road is L12321 as they approach. I'd add a triangle shape at cross roads to indicate if the road distance increases or decreases(triangle up/down)
I'd argue that irrespective of a proposed postcode, labelling roads is a good thing anyway.
I'd also be in favour of labelling Townlands too. I know in parts of Galway, they have the townland name inscribed on a stone as you enter it. Not so much as a postcode or location thing, but to mark our heritage.0
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This discussion has been closed.
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