National Postcodes to be introduced

Carawaystick

just skimmed through this

On page five, it describes storing seven characters i.e.
3 in the routing key
space
4 unique identifiers

Or 8 characters as I count it...
ffs

Sam Russell

Carawaystick wrote: »

just skimmed through this

On page five, it describes storing seven characters i.e.
3 in the routing key
space
4 unique identifiers

Or 8 characters as I count it...
ffs

Another section of the link says what this is all about.

Businesses have two options to obtain the Eircode Data Set:
1. Purchase the Eircode Data Set through an Eircode Provider.
From September 2014 our website will be updated with a
directory of approved Eircode Providers, giving an indication of their products or services (recommended for small to medium business).

2. Purchase the Eircode Data Set directly and become an Eircode Provider or Direct User. An Eircode Provider is an organisation which is licensed to use Eircode Data in its products and services and can then sell these on to its own customers. A Direct User can only use the Eircode Data Set for internal use; they cannot sell these products or services
to other companies.

It is all about selling the info to users.

MBSnr

Sam Russell wrote: »

Mind you they had a simillar spat about 0207 and 0208 phone numbers. [Inner London was 0207 and outer London was 0208]

/Pedantic Mode On

01 -> 071/081 -> 0171/0181 then 020(x) where x is mostly 7 or 8. The dialling code for London is actually 020.

I was there and ironically (TheBustedFlush post) also lived in TW3 before moving to TW2 a few streets away.....

Bray Head

The more I think about it the more I feel there is merit in having less specificity in the code rather than more. And that the existing plan for the final four digits as random is probably not a bad one.

Here's why. Many years ago I had a boss who claimed she threw CVs from a certain part of town in the bin. More recently when interviewing people I noticed a very clear pattern. This was where candidates from less affluent places provided less specific addresses. Often they would leave out the name of a local authority estate, or a whole suburb of Dublin, and just use the postal district. They were clearly afraid that the brand name of a certain estate or suburb would work against them. (For the record, it didn't).

Some on this thread have advocated postcodes where only the last two digits were random. However it wouldn't be long before snobby people (and that's most people) started deciding that D04 AA was a nicer place than D04 BB and that D04 CC was akin to the sixth circle of hell! This could make people less likely to use them than more.

I've said before that the introduction of postcodes will provide a quantum leap in research on education, labour markets and spatial patterns of all sorts of things in Ireland. I think this is a good thing and will allow for much better ex-post assessment of all sorts of policies. Lack of specificity in postcodes won't hamper this. Matching the codes to CSO small areas or electoral districts should be simple enough once it's done once.

PS: the eagle-eyed among you may notice that this contradicts what I've said previously on the thread a bit. Yes, I have in fact changed my mind!

Enduro

yuloni wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Well, more primary legislation will need to be introduced before this particular implementation of postcodes can be used. That definitely has potential to cause a delay.

Sam Russell

MBSnr wrote: »

/Pedantic Mode On

01 -> 071/081 -> 0171/0181 then 020(x) where x is mostly 7 or 8. The dialling code for London is actually 020.

I was there and ironically (TheBustedFlush post) also lived in TW3 before moving to TW2 a few streets away.....

Pedantic note :

When 071/081 changed to 0207/0208, the dial code from one to the other required the 0207 or 0208 prefix to be dialled - hence the outcry. They then changed the London code to 020 and the local number to 8xxx xxxx or 7xxx xxxx. That quietened the noise.

Carawaystick

Sam Russell wrote: »

Another section of the link says what this is all about.



It is all about selling the info to users.

Except it's not being sold, it's licensed and tarted up as being sold. If you can't resell something, you don't own it

Impetus

Sam Russell wrote: »

Pedantic note :

When 071/081 changed to 0207/0208, the dial code from one to the other required the 0207 or 0208 prefix to be dialled - hence the outcry. They then changed the London code to 020 and the local number to 8xxx xxxx or 7xxx xxxx. That quietened the noise.

Lack of intelligent planning demonstrates the problem Anglo Saxons have with numbers. They could have remained with 01 for London and given them an 8 digit number. One sees the same brain deadness in the US - 212 was the original area code for New York and 213 for LA. Over 5,000 km apart. Saxons are numerically challenged. The Oirish "eircode" system is following the same stupid path.

The Irish phone numbering plan is intelligently laid out, similar to most other European countries. Why shouldn't the Irish postcode system follow the European norm? Answer: dumb civil servants and corruption, and a breach of European privacy norms. In the former East Germany if you had a typewriter you had to get a license for it which involved them "fingerprinting" the entire typeface, unique to the typewriter. In 2014/5 if you have a house, you will have to get a postcode unique to that house. Not unlike the application forms if you want a water supply to your house, where one has to go down on one's knees to keep the water flowing from the tap - please sir my pps number is 2345678 may I have some water please please? Ireland is allowing the Hitleristic EU mentality to take over the nation state. And then some.

Sam Russell

Carawaystick wrote: »

Except it's not being sold, it's licensed and tarted up as being sold. If you can't resell something, you don't own it

It's about selling licences - that is - money.

Selling something that should be freely available - and is in most countries. There is no charge for looking up phone numbers and there should be no charge for looking up postcodes.

Sam Russell

[QUOTE=Impetus;92464428
The Irish phone numbering plan is intelligently laid out, similar to most other European countries. Why shouldn't the Irish postcode system follow the European norm?
[/QUOTE]

If they had used a numeric code based on the phone numbering system - everyone would be familliar with the layout. A five digit code would bring the code to cover perhaps 20 to 300 houses. A suplemental code could be used to marrow this down or even just a house number.

Simples.

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

If they had used a numeric code based on the phone numbering system - everyone would be familliar with the layout. A five digit code would bring the code to cover perhaps 20 to 300 houses. A suplemental code could be used to marrow this down or even just a house number.

Simples.

I think having a code that can be added to or subtracted from to vary its accuracy would be riddled with problems

Its far more straight forward to tell people ABC123 is your postcode, rather than well ABC123 is your post code if you want to be vague about it and ABC123 XY is your postcode if you want to be specific.

it would just cause all sorts of confusion and be a nightmare for web designing and data gathering. people wouldn't know what to use when and you'd end up with a mix of specific and non specify postcodes being used across different areas by different people in different circumstances.

if you want to be simple about - ABC123 is your postcode - it identifies your house. thats whats 'simples'.

SpaceTime

Impetus wrote: »

Lack of intelligent planning demonstrates the problem Anglo Saxons have with numbers. They could have remained with 01 for London and given them an 8 digit number. One sees the same brain deadness in the US - 212 was the original area code for New York and 213 for LA. Over 5,000 km apart. Saxons are numerically challenged. The Oirish "eircode" system is following the same stupid path.

The Irish phone numbering plan is intelligently laid out, similar to most other European countries. Why shouldn't the Irish postcode system follow the European norm? Answer: dumb civil servants and corruption, and a breach of European privacy norms. In the former East Germany if you had a typewriter you had to get a license for it which involved them "fingerprinting" the entire typeface, unique to the typewriter. In 2014/5 if you have a house, you will have to get a postcode unique to that house. Not unlike the application forms if you want a water supply to your house, where one has to go down on one's knees to keep the water flowing from the tap - please sir my pps number is 2345678 may I have some water please please? Ireland is allowing the Hitleristic EU mentality to take over the nation state. And then some.

The American system was about ease of dialling on a rotary phone and ease of wiring on step-by-step Electrotechnical exchanges.

Dialing low digits, you don't turn the dial so far or they avoided confusion.

212, 213, 415 etc were the easiest to dial. Simple as that really.

Bigger cities (in the 40s) got easier codes as it avoided misdialling on more calls.

They also had to have 1 or 0 as the second digit as that's how the local exchange knew it was an area code and not a local number you were dialing.

Later they added the need to dial 1 (212) xxx xxxx so they were able to add other digits to area codes.

It's a classic example of the machines dictating the system rather than the human factor.

Ireland's system is actually extremely human friendly regional codes and subcodes.
That's possibly because our long distance system was originally based on crossbar switches which where much more flexible than what the American system was using in the 40s.

It's nothing to do with the Anglosaxon approach. America had a comprehensive, automatic long distance dialing system in the 1940s most European countries didn't have that until the 60s and 70s.

Early adopters always end up with more cumbersome systems.

The British system originally used letters which is why their number codes don't make sense. France also adopted a system very early and ended up with a very rigid xx.xx.xx.xx.xx format.

A lot of it depended on when the system was built and what equipment was used. Irish long distance dialing between Dublin and Cork only happened in 1957 and the rest of the country from then until the early 80s

Sam Russell

ukoda wrote: »

I think having a code that can be added to or subtracted from to vary its accuracy would be riddled with problems

Its far more straight forward to tell people ABC123 is your postcode, rather than well ABC123 is your post code if you want to be vague about it and ABC123 XY is your postcode if you want to be specific.

it would just cause all sorts of confusion and be a nightmare for web designing and data gathering. people wouldn't know what to use when and you'd end up with a mix of specific and non specify postcodes being used across different areas by different people in different circumstances.

if you want to be simple about - ABC123 is your postcode - it identifies your house. thats whats 'simples'.

I am suggesting a simple 5 digit post-code that gets it down to a locality with about 20 or so houses. A house number will get to one house in most cases. The full code would only be used for tax reasons.

Having ABC123 for me is simple, but if my neighbours house is ABCXJ8 and the one the other side is ABCL9B is not simple - it is simply rediculous.

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

Having ABC123 for me is simple, but if my neighbours house is ABCXJ8 and the one the other side is ABCL9B is not simple - it is simply rediculous.

what does it matter to you what your neighbours postcode is? in any real way, how does it affect you?

SpaceTime

Sam Russell wrote: »

I am suggesting a simple 5 digit post-code that gets it down to a locality with about 20 or so houses. A house number will get to one house in most cases. The full code would only be used for tax reasons.

Having ABC123 for me is simple, but if my neighbours house is ABCXJ8 and the one the other side is ABCL9B is not simple - it is simply rediculous.

The issue is that half the houses have no unique number or street address

TheBustedFlush

ukoda wrote: »

I think having a code that can be added to or subtracted from to vary its accuracy would be riddled with problems

Its far more straight forward to tell people ABC123 is your postcode, rather than well ABC123 is your post code if you want to be vague about it and ABC123 XY is your postcode if you want to be specific.

it would just cause all sorts of confusion and be a nightmare for web designing and data gathering. people wouldn't know what to use when and you'd end up with a mix of specific and non specify postcodes being used across different areas by different people in different circumstances.

if you want to be simple about - ABC123 is your postcode - it identifies your house. thats whats 'simples'.

Agreed.

If I live at 3 Postcode Lawns, Postown, Monaghan, then my location is already clear to people if I provide my address. The Eircode is just a shorter/quicker way of saying this effectively and ensures it can't be confused with another address (e.g. 33 or 3a) on the same road because its code will not look the same as mine. It also means that my house doesn't get lumped in with a whole lot of other ones in the same code area that lazy insurance companies then use to decide a premium for the area, or property values or financial status or credit ratings, etc, etc as happens in the UK. The delivery man can still find me or the emergency services (though hopefully not), or even my long-lost half-cousin twice removed visiting from Australia.

TheBustedFlush

Sam Russell wrote: »

It's about selling licences - that is - money.

Selling something that should be freely available - and is in most countries. There is no charge for looking up phone numbers and there should be no charge for looking up postcodes.

So how do you propose that they make money if they don't charge commercial companies for it?

There isn't any charge to the public for looking them up - it'll be free.

A lot of other countries charge commercially for access to their databases - that's how they meet the costs of maintaining them.

Sam Russell

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

So how do you propose that they make money if they don't charge commercial companies for it?

There isn't any charge to the public for looking them up - it'll be free.

A lot of other countries charge commercially for access to their databases - that's how they meet the costs of maintaining them.

If it was properly designed, it would cost little to design and run, but by choosing this design, it ensures a costly maintenance requirement.

The basic problem is the lack of unique addresses. That is not tackled in this design, unless everyone puts up plaques with the postcode outside. Mind you, because of the random nature of the code, that would not help you find a particular postcode in an estate (unless you had a database in your pocket together with a gps based map). I know number 17 is not far from 15, but I have no idea how far ABC123 is from ABCXHP.

It is not clear how much charges will be, or for what kind of access, nor who will have to pay.

TheBustedFlush

Sam Russell wrote: »

If it was properly designed, it would cost little to design and run, but by choosing this design, it ensures a costly maintenance requirement.

The basic problem is the lack of unique addresses. That is not tackled in this design, unless everyone puts up plaques with the postcode outside. Mind you, because of the random nature of the code, that would not help you find a particular postcode in an estate (unless you had a database in your pocket together with a gps based map). I know number 17 is not far from 15, but I have no idea how far ABC123 is from ABCXHP.

It is not clear how much charges will be, or for what kind of access, nor who will have to pay.

Well leaving aside what way you think the code should have been designed, a central database has to be created one way or the other, and it has to be maintained. That is the same in a lot of other countries too.

If the code is adapted by mapping companies, satnavs, etc, then people will simply be able to type in an address or eircode into their phone and it'll show where it is - this happens a lot already. Why would you want to know how far one postcode is from another if you don't know where either of them is in the first place? Access to the internet is practically universal in the country for most people, and it's already been said that there will be a free lookup website where you can look up the location of a code, or its address - again this is not very difficult to achieve and there's easy access for people.

The one thing that the Eircode does is tackle the problem of non-unique addresses - since every address will have its own unique identifier code.

The notion that companies will have to pay to license the database for their own commercial purposes is not uncommon and makes sense, rather than the taxpayer having to pay more for it.

SpaceTime

I think this is being seen as a state revenue generation opportunity and that's what's driven the decision to go with a database.

They're seeing the potential to bring in cash via licencing.

TheBustedFlush

SpaceTime wrote: »

I think this is being seen as a state revenue generation opportunity and that's what's driven the decision to go with a database.

They're seeing the potential to bring in cash via licencing.

What's the alternative decision they could have gone with? Not have a database?

yuloni

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Bray Head

Sam Russell wrote: »

If it was properly designed, it would cost little to design and run, but by choosing this design, it ensures a costly maintenance requirement.

The basic problem is the lack of unique addresses. That is not tackled in this design, unless everyone puts up plaques with the postcode outside.

One cannot simultaneously complain about eircode not solving the unique address problem while also being expensive.

Ireland's address system is deeply, intractably messy in rural areas but in many urban areas too. No one disputes that. One could attempt to superimpose a sensible address system on the entire country through re-numbering houses, re-naming and even naming roads. This would be far more expensive than eircode, would be deeply contentious at local level and would likely encounter mass resistance.

Eircode will cost about 0.001% of GDP. There are lots of monopoly goods the state provides you with inidrectly and directly, through third-party providers and from state agencies. For example keeping an up-to-date passport throughout your whole life will cost you far more than eircode ever will.

Sam Russell

Bray Head wrote: »

One cannot simultaneously complain about eircode not solving the unique address problem while also being expensive.

Ireland's address system is deeply, intractably messy in rural areas but in many urban areas too. No one disputes that. One could attempt to superimpose a sensible address system on the entire country through re-numbering houses, re-naming and even naming roads. This would be far more expensive than eircode, would be deeply contentious at local level and would likely encounter mass resistance.

Eircode will cost about 0.001% of GDP. There are lots of monopoly goods the state provides you with inidrectly and directly, through third-party providers and from state agencies. For example keeping an up-to-date passport throughout your whole life will cost you far more than eircode ever will.

To justify one scam by quoting the existence of many others is dishonest.

A simple numeric system that gives locality would be simple and cheap. Let the Revenue or someother body interested in tax or other Government issues take it to the individual address (and they pay for the creation and maintenace). Numbers being a more robust type of coding than alphanumeric ones.

The random nature of the code is a secondary complaint. If the systematic part of the code (say D04) were to locate down to a few hundfred addresses, then giving that part of the code would suffice for many users. However, the granularity of first part of the proposed code is ridiculously large and so unusable.

The charge element of the code smacks of being a cash cow for someone, not necessarily the state. The sate has been ripped off by many Public-Private schemes in the past, from the West-Link bridge to the Shannon tunnel. It is the Public part that takes the risk and the Private part that takes the profit.

We have had eVoting, PayPars, etc. All scandals that remain in the memory of all but the public servants that thought them up and oversaw the disasters they became - but they were not responsible for them.

yuloni

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tvc15

yuloni wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Well there's some straightforward advertising for loc8 anyway. I wonder will the social media marketing end once the eircodes are actually in use? What exactly is their revenue stream?

yuloni

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a65b2cd

That is very creative and amusing although it will probably do a better job of informing the public about the development of Eircodes than the official promotions ... the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about !!!

yuloni

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ukoda

yuloni wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

131 likes and hasn't budged in days, I'm sure eircode are ****ting themselves with this high profile campaign that's quickly gathering momentum....