National Postcodes to be introduced

ukoda

diomed wrote: »

23 Jun 2014 www.eircode.ie
"​Letters will be sent to 2.2 million households across the country next spring with details of their new postcodes, it was announced yesterday."

What happened?

you'll have it the last 2 weeks of June, so about 6-8 weeks and it'll be in the door.

Interestingly, i saw a Government form today that had a box marked "EIRCODE" on it under the address section, first time I've seen it on any forms! tis coming alright!

ukoda

ukoda wrote: »

you'll have it the last 2 weeks of June, so about 6-8 weeks and it'll be in the door.

Interestingly, i saw a Government form today that had a box marked "EIRCODE" on it under the address section, first time I've seen it on any forms! tis coming alright!

Why use the tradename for what is in fact a POSTCODE

ukoda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why use the tradename for what is in fact a POSTCODE

I don't actually know, not a particular fan of naming it myself, like they could have named the company eircode but use the term postcode for the actual code. I'm not sure the rationale behind naming it, but anyway, I'm sure it won't matter if a form says "EIRCODE" or "POSTCODE"

ukoda

ukoda wrote: »

I don't actually know, not a particular fan of naming it myself, like they could have named the company eircode but use the term postcode for the actual code. I'm not sure the rationale behind naming it, but anyway, I'm sure it won't matter if a form says "EIRCODE" or "POSTCODE"

It does if you don't realise that eircode is the tradename for the postcode, it will cause confusion when giving your address to people abroad.

Eircode
The won't have a clue, same could be said for many in Ireland as well!

ukoda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It does if you don't realise that eircode is the tradename for the postcode, it will cause confusion when giving your address to people abroad.

Eircode
The won't have a clue, same could be said for many in Ireland as well!

Ah here, that's a bit of a stretch, everyone will be told eircode is your postcode, no one going to be confused.

And giving your address to overseas? You'll just give your address with the postcode at the end,

So you'll say my address is:
123 Main Street
County
ABC 1234
Ireland

No one announces that they are about to provide you with their postcode in any other country. You won't be saying:

123 Main Street
County
And now for my postcode, which in Ireland is an eircode, ok ready? It's...
ABC 1234

Anyone overseas will have the expectation of a postcode of some sort near the end of your address. You won't have to announce to them as a postcode, you won't even have to mention the word postcode, no one in any other country I've experienced does that.


You are really getting into nitpicking territory now!

Imagine saying to a French company when asked your address "my eircode is...." will be the response.

ukoda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Imagine saying to a French company when asked your address "my eircode is...." will be the response.

As above, the rest of the world gives their address without mentioning the word postcode. We Irish can do the same.

And so what if you say to a French person my eircode is ABC 1234, they will say "sorry what's that?, "it's my postcode" "oh ok thanks"

it's quite the disaster isn't it?!.....

Germans use the term PLZ for a postcode
The U.S. call it a ZIP code
The Italians use the term CAP
Etc etc


The world hasn't ended because each country had its own term for postcodes.

SpaceTime

ukoda wrote: »

As above, the rest of the world gives their address without mentioning the word postcode. We Irish can do the same.

And so what if you say to a French person my eircode is ABC 1234, they will say "sorry what's that?, "it's my postcode" "oh ok thanks"

it's quite the disaster isn't it?!.....

Germans use the term PLZ for a postcode
The U.S. call it a ZIP code
The Italians use the term CAP
Etc etc


The world hasn't ended because each country had its own term for postcodes.

I doubt many people other than state bodies will call it eircode to be honest. Postcode is universally understood outside the U.S. anyway.

Americans have often got no idea what that mean and only understand zip code.

long_b

I wonder how long it will take online retailers outside of Ireland to recognise valid Eircodes? Eg Amazon.co.uk

long_b

long_b wrote: »

I wonder how long it will take online retailers outside of Ireland to recognise valid Eircodes? Eg Amazon.co.uk

Will the retailers within Ireland also recognise the postcodes within a reasonable timeframe?

ukoda

long_b wrote: »

I wonder how long it will take online retailers outside of Ireland to recognise valid Eircodes? Eg Amazon.co.uk

They probably never will, why would they? A US code won't work on a German site, French won't work on a UK site etc etc(assuming they are using validation and not free text boxes)
Why do you think the whole world should be able to validate our code?!

Theses retailers don't need to "recognise" our eircode, they just need a free text box that says postcode and we can do the rest.

ukoda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Will the retailers within Ireland also recognise the postcodes within a reasonable timeframe?

Most retailers use "out of the box" CRM systems that would have postcode as standard, they can turn it on as free text or if they buy the ECAD they can use validation to return the correct address.

I would imagine this would be of interest to a lot of companies, although it will of course take time to become common place

long_b

ukoda wrote: »

They probably never will, why would they? A US code won't work on a German site, French won't work on a UK site etc etc(assuming they are using validation and not free text boxes)
Why do you think the whole world should be able to validate our code?!

Theses retailers don't need to "recognise" our eircode, they just need a free text box that says postcode and we can do the rest.

I was thinking more of postcode look ups like on Tesco Direct. I guess UK codes are different as they're not down to the house

SpaceTime

In some ways eircode would be easy as that's actually all they'd need to look up an Irish address. No validation needed.

Just type in eircode and if it displays your address you're good to go.

You wouldn't actually need to cross reference the address typed in with the postal code which is required for most other systems.

We're kinda going from one extreme to the other !

All you would need in reality is first word of address or house number and eircode.

There's a check digit? Right?

ukoda

long_b wrote: »

I was thinking more of postcode look ups like on Tesco Direct. I guess UK codes are different as they're not down to the house

There's nothing stopping tesco buying the eircode ECAD and being able to verify your address just by putting your postcode in on their site, given that they operate a large presence in Ireland, it's likely they would do this. this also applies to Amazon et al, I'm not saying it won't happen, just that I wouldn't have too high an expectation that they would do it, given they are mainly UK operation.

SpaceTime

It'll happen as time goes on.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

In some ways eircode would be easy as that's actually all they'd need to look up an Irish address. No validation needed.

Just type in eircode and if it displays your address you're good to go.

You wouldn't actually need to cross reference the address typed in with the postal code which is required for most other systems.

We're kinda going from one extreme to the other !

All you would need in reality is first word of address or house number and eircode.

There's a check digit? Right?

I believe there is some checking built in from reading the product guide, however if they did use eircode validation, I assume the customer would enter their eircode and the full address would be displayed so the customer can eyeball it and say "yup that's my address"

SpaceTime

If the price is reasonable and the API is simple to integrate into existing systems it'll be used by lots of online retailers.

If it's expensive and the API is weird, you'll only see uptake where absolutely necessary.

Ireland's a small market. The most likely implementation would simply be free text with no verification. That's what a huge % of sites do with most postcodes anyway.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

If the price is reasonable and the API is simple to integrate into existing systems it'll be used by lots of online retailers.

If it's expensive and the API is weird, you'll only see uptake where absolutely necessary.

Ireland's a small market. The most likely implementation would simply be free text with no verification. That's what a huge % of sites do with most postcodes anyway.

3k for unlimited website address verifications, puts it well within the reach of tesco, Amazon etc

paulbok

ukoda wrote: »

3k for unlimited website address verifications, puts it well within the reach of tesco, Amazon etc

Is that per year or a once off fee?

paulbok

paulbok wrote: »

Is that per year or a once off fee?

I would very (pleasantly) surprised if it was a one off payment, otherwise, they'll want a maintenance fee as well because of frequent changes to the data.

ukoda

paulbok wrote: »

Is that per year or a once off fee?

Annual fee

Full list of their prices here
https://www.eircode.ie/docs/default-source/Common/licencing-and-pricing-information-as-of-march-2015---published-v-1-0.pdf?sfvrsn=0

ozmo

Blog post by the people creating the Eircode postcode (autoaddress).

Usual stuff - lots of firefighting the criticisms bandied against them from all quarters.

link

Except they seem to have released two bits of information I havn't seen elsewhere yet...

1) Database size for an offline device, address and xy could be about 70MB to 100MB depending on how efficiently its stored.
2) and will cost €60 a copy of the database (not mentioned if its ex or inc vat.).


For an offline IPhone app like tomtom that costs €40 euros for Irish and UK maps (that includes the app, maps and basic UK postcode searching)
- €60 euros extra on top represents what would be a considerable premium of the apps price to pay just to lookup an Irish Postcode.

Plus - says once off download - could that mean this would require 4 such purchases a year to stay up to date?

OssianSmyth

SpaceTime wrote: »

There's a check digit? Right?

No, there's no checksum forumla to validate Eircodes.

ukoda

ozmo wrote: »

Blog post by the people creating the Eircode postcode (autoaddress).

Usual stuff - lots of firefighting the criticisms bandied against them from all quarters.

link

Except they seem to have released two bits of information I havn't seen elsewhere yet...

1) Database size for an offline device, address and xy could be about 70MB to 100MB depending on how efficiently its stored.
2) and will cost €60 a copy of the database (not mentioned if its ex or inc vat.).


For an offline IPhone app like tomtom that costs €40 euros for Irish and UK maps (that includes the app, maps and basic UK postcode searching)
- €60 euros extra on top represents what would be a considerable premium of the apps price to pay just to lookup an Irish Postcode.

Plus - says once off download - could that mean this would require 4 such purchases a year to stay up to date?

I presume the €60 is a cost for a copy of the database for navigation use, it's not €60 per end user? I.e. TomTom pays the 60 and that covers them for using it for the app, no matter how many times its purchased?

If that's the case, it's dirt cheap

And so many people on here were arguing "oh shur it'll never fit on a sat nav"

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

I presume the €60 is a cost for a copy of the database for navigation use, it's not €60 per end user? I.e. TomTom pays the 60 and that covers them for using it for the app, no matter how many times its purchased?

If that's the case, it's dirt cheap

And so many people on here were arguing "oh shur it'll never fit on a sat nav"

That €60 was per-user for the ECAF not the ECAD (which is what a satnav would need). ECAD is €180 per user, up to a max of €30,000 per annum. They might have a different product altogether for satnavs though with Eircode -> geo-coordinates only. But, there's no mention of that in the licensing guide.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

That €60 was per-user for the ECAF not the ECAD (which is what a satnav would need). ECAD is €180 per user, up to a max of €30,000 per annum. They might have a different product altogether for satnavs though with Eircode -> geo-coordinates only. But, there's no mention of that in the licensing guide.

They do have a totally different product for "digital mapping" they told me this in an email when I asked them

Carawaystick

ukoda wrote: »

They do have a totally different product for "digital mapping" they told me this in an email when I asked them

But even though they planned to launch before the end of last month, they have not publicly advertised this?

ukoda

Carawaystick wrote: »

But even though they planned to launch before the end of last month, they have not publicly advertised this?

Yes I've an issue with this, because they also told me, some what inadvertently, that they were "already working with Digital Mapping companies" which is fair enough, but the smaller players are at a disadvantage if they are already dealing with the "big guys" I'm assuming they meant they were already dealing with the likes of TomTom / Garmin / Google etc

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

They do have a totally different product for "digital mapping" they told me this in an email when I asked them

I think it's most unlikely that they will offer an open-ended license for 60 euros a year for it though.