National Postcodes to be introduced

marmurr1916

Bayberry wrote: »

Why the fixation on Loc8?

You do understand that the concept of a geo-code isn't something exclusive to Loc8, it's just one particular implementation that was designed with the physical size of the island of Ireland in mind? I'm not sure why you think that an algorithm that can be written out in a few lines of code would be enough to make a company a "major force in the geocoding sector".

I'm not fixated on Loc8 at all. The post I replied to said that Loc8 was an SME.

I asked why it was still an SME after all these years if it's such a great product.

A perfectly reasonable question which still hasn't been answered.

ukoda

marmurr1916 wrote: »

I'm not fixated on Loc8 at all. The post I replied to said that Loc8 was an SME.

I asked why it was still an SME after all these years if it's such a great product.

A perfectly reasonable question which still hasn't been answered.

Sur they got it on Garmin! They consider that an achievement while the rest of the world moves away from stand alone sat nav devices.

Bayberry

ukoda wrote: »

Are you seriously trying to justify a courier having a correct address and postcode but failing to deliver a package to the right location?

Why are you so defensive about eircode? The poster that mentioned the package being delivered to Mayo instead of Tipp said nothing about whether there was an address on the package or not, only that there was an eircode, and that it didn't do what we've been told all along eircode would do - facilitate the delivery of packages.

That's a failure for eircode, even if the courier completely ignored the eircode!

You can splutter "but, but, but...." all you like. If you want to claim the advantages that you say eircode will bring, you have to own the failures too. If the courier company can't make use of eircodes because eircode made a deliberate decision to ignore the requirements of the courier business, that's an problem with eircodes. If eircode decided to deliver eircodes to end users , and advertise their existence before they delivered the address databases to service providers, that's a problem with eircodes. If the answer is "this will all work just fine in 6 months time"(or a years time, or 2 years time, etc) then you can't claim that eircode is absolutely perfect and without any possible flaw, and that anyone pointing out the problems with eircode (whether design, implementation or public expectation) is just a whinger.

Bayberry

marmurr1916 wrote: »

As a techie, you should be aware that someone's brought out a little bit of free code that's able to bypass the 15 per day limit on free eircode lookups.

It's mentioned a good deal earlier in this thread - enjoy looking it up! :P

I'm well aware of ways around the limit. The point is that eircode imposed a limit in the first place - if I wrote a script and found anything interesting, the eircode supporters would complain that I was obviously anti-eircode because I had broken their rules.

ukoda

Bayberry wrote: »

Why are you so defensive about eircode? The poster that mentioned the package being delivered to Mayo instead of Tipp said nothing about whether there was an address on the package or not, only that there was an eircode, and that it didn't do what we've been told all along eircode would do - facilitate the delivery of packages.

That's a failure for eircode, even if the courier completely ignored the eircode!

You can splutter "but, but, but...." all you like. If you want to claim the advantages that you say eircode will bring, you have to own the failures too. If the courier company can't make use of eircodes because eircode made a deliberate decision to ignore the requirements of the courier business, that's an problem with eircodes. If eircode decided to deliver eircodes to end users , and advertise their existence before they delivered the address databases to service providers, that's a problem with eircodes. If the answer is "this will all work just fine in 6 months time"(or a years time, or 2 years time, etc) then you can't claim that eircode is absolutely perfect and without any possible flaw, and that anyone pointing out the problems with eircode (whether design, implementation or public expectation) is just a whinger.

That's why I said this one "appears" not to be an eircode failing and that IF a courier has an address and postcode, then it's their own fault if they can't deliver a package. You can try twist it all you want but that's a reality.

I never called anyone a whinger.

I disagree with you on eircode, I know that annoys you, but there's nothing you can do about it. Don't take it to heart

ukoda

Bayberry wrote: »

I'm well aware of ways around the limit. The point is that eircode imposed a limit in the first place - if I wrote a script and found anything interesting, the eircode supporters would complain that I was obviously anti-eircode because I had broken their rules.

The only interesting thing you might find is that some businesses are too stupid to check their postcode before putting it on their website.

TheBustedFlush

marmurr1916 wrote: »

I asked why it was still an SME after all these years if it's such a great product.
A perfectly reasonable question which still hasn't been answered.

Enterprise Ireland put taxpayer's money into it as a High Potential Start-Up business. As far as I know, Enterprise Ireland supports companies who are meant to be focussing on exporting their goods and services and bringing revenues into the country.

So they're probably putting most of their efforts into selling their services abroad - Ireland isn't a big enough market since they didn't get the tender for the national system and it's not a market that EI companies should be focussing on anyway.

plodder

marmurr1916 wrote: »

I'm not fixated on Loc8 at all. The post I replied to said that Loc8 was an SME.

I asked why it was still an SME after all these years if it's such a great product.

A perfectly reasonable question which still hasn't been answered.

It has been answered. The biggest difference is that Eircode has the stamp of approval of the state, whereas loc8 doesn't. Look at it this way. If Eircode was just another location code, and wasn't the official state postcode, do you think it would have the amount of support that it does?

Bray Head

Aimead wrote: »

Holy shoite that is seriously disingenuous. Had Loc8 been given anywhere near the same support that Eircode got, such as getting posted to every household in the country, then you might have something in the vicinity of a comparison. You’re right in that there is no comparison, but not for the dishonesty you give here.

Which one of the three Loc8 codes I have generated for my house would have been posted to me?

ukoda

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

Enterprise Ireland put taxpayer's money into it as a High Potential Start-Up business. As far as I know, Enterprise Ireland supports companies who are meant to be focussing on exporting their goods and services and bringing revenues into the country.

So they're probably putting most of their efforts into selling their services abroad - Ireland isn't a big enough market since they didn't get the tender for the national system and it's not a market that EI companies should be focussing on anyway.

That's the real waste of tax payers money. They had 5 year head start on eircode to make some sort of an impact on Ireland. It was given money as a private company to conduct itself as such, saying they failed because they weren't made the national postcode is like saying Hailo will fail because it's not the national taxi app.
You don't need to be given a national government contract to be a success.
They are dead in the water now anyway as Google launched plus codes, so they won't let any other geo-code on their maps, so loc8 are locked out of the future of location and navigation services.

plodder

Say the state decided to create a taxi app, called Eirtaxi, and it forced all taxis in the country to register on it (maybe for free) and allowed use by the public (up to 15 times a day) for free, then it probably would kill off Hailo here. It's not a perfect analogy but the point is that the state has a level of clout, when it comes to national infrastructure that no private company can compete with.

Having said that, even if we decided to have a geocode, I don't see how it could have been loc8, or any other proprietary code (I don't really believe it was offered for free unconditionally). We would have just created a "different" geocode for zero cost, with no restrictions.

mackerski

plodder wrote: »

Say the state decided to create a taxi app, called Eirtaxi, and it forced all taxis in the country to register on it (maybe for free) and allowed use by the public (up to 15 times a day) for free, then it probably would kill off Hailo here. It's not a perfect analogy but the point is that the state has a level of clout, when it comes to national infrastructure that no private company can compete with.

So you reckon we should deregulate our postal code system, embrace multiple providers and each homeowner could decide which system to use and hope it was the same one supported by the couriers delivering to him? Like all the progressive countries do...?

plodder

mackerski wrote: »

So you reckon we should deregulate our postal code system, embrace multiple providers and each homeowner could decide which system to use and hope it was the same one supported by the couriers delivering to him?

No. My post was only in relation to this idea that loc8 must be a terrible system because it's not as widely known as Eircode (with the state behind it etc etc)

oscarBravo

With the caveat that anecdotes don't add up to evidence: we've started asking customers for their Eircodes when they call, whether they are new customer inquiries or existing customers with tech support queries. Based on the response rate so far, at least 80% of people asked are able to provide their Eircode on cue.

moyners

€27 mill well spent! (Spotted on twitter)

https://twitter.com/yarrumk/status/632191156470837248

marmurr1916

plodder wrote: »

No. My post was only in relation to this idea that loc8 must be a terrible system because it's not as widely known as Eircode (with the state behind it etc etc)

If it's so great why isn't it better known? You'd think that a great new online application (that also works offline on many phones and sat navs) would have developed a higher profile over the years it's been in operation.

Clearly the general public haven't adopted it to any great degree. A good application doesn't need much advertising.

The fact that it hasn't been successful doesn't mean it's a terrible system. It means that it's a system that most people don't have much use for.

marmurr1916

plodder wrote: »

It has been answered. The biggest difference is that Eircode has the stamp of approval of the state, whereas loc8 doesn't. Look at it this way. If Eircode was just another location code, and wasn't the official state postcode, do you think it would have the amount of support that it does?

I doubt it but so what?

If Loc8 is so great why wasn't it in widespread use before eircodes were decided on, let alone launched?

You can't blame the failure of Loc8 to capture the public imagination since it was launched several years ago on a system (eircode) that only launched to the general public a few weeks ago.

What's been happening in the interim? Why didn't Loc8 capture the public imagination and find itself widely used? Clearly the general public didn't find it particularly useful. If they had found it useful, it would have been widely used and perhaps eircodes might never have been launched at all.

That's no reflection on the quality of Loc8, it's a reflection of its utility to the general public.

A product or service might be of great quality but it might never become a success with the general public because they don't perceive a need for it or see how that it's useful to them.

Way back in the mid-80s, Guinness launched a new beer called Guinness Light.

It was made to the same standard as ordinary Guinness and was extensively promoted and marketed with all the power of the Guinness brand behind it.

The main product benefit that was promoted was that it had "all the great taste of Guinness but only half the calories" or something along those lines.

But it flopped.

Why? Because traditional Guinness drinkers, mainly men, weren't concerned about calories and the female drinkers it was targeted at didn't perceive Guinness of any kind to be a woman's drink whether it was lower in calories or not.

Perhaps a Guinness Light type product could be success in 2015 but 30 years ago it was the wrong product in the wrong market at the wrong time.

Having a good product, even what you perceive to be a technically superior product, is no guarantee of success as the relative failure of Betamax compared to VHS proves.

A lot of technically minded people fail to appreciate that products or services, no matter what their quality, have to win public acceptance to be successful.

There's no point in designing a better mouse trap if nobody wants to trap mice any more! :P

marmurr1916

plodder wrote: »

Say the state decided to create a taxi app, called Eirtaxi, and it forced all taxis in the country to register on it.

The use of eircodes is not compulsory...

marmurr1916

marmurr1916 wrote: »

The use of eircodes is not compulsory...

Yet! It's only a matter of time before it is required when submitting your address to a company or government department with a no postcode, no service rider.

OU812

Deleted User wrote: »

Yet! It's only a matter of time before it is required when submitting your address to a company or government department with a no postcode, no service rider.

It's already on the Property Tax website. Logged in last night to check & was surprised to find it there. It's in the following format:

Streetname
Town
Dublin 5
Dublin
D05 XXX

Which seems a little overkill...

OU812

OU812 wrote: »

It's already on the Property Tax website. Logged in last night to check & was surprised to find it there. It's in the following format:

Streetname
Town
Dublin 5
Dublin
D05 XXX

Which seems a little overkill...

They've just added in the postcode field, the "Dublin 5" is just part of the legacy address. Give it a few years and you'll see it being dropped completely.

I suspect that it will be up to people who submit their addresses to drop the superfluous line.

GJG

Deleted User wrote: »

Yet! It's only a matter of time before it is required when submitting your address to a company or government department with a no postcode, no service rider.

The reason for saying this was so that the cranks who were howling at the moon that Eircode would 'cost lives' don't have to be confronted, they can be just left to their own devices.

But I'd say you are generally right; what is said is that you don't have to use the Eircode. There was never any suggestion that you can veto anyone else from using Eircode. That extends, I would imagine, to the Eircode from your house. If, for example, I was running an insurance company, I would very soon be asking all clients for their Eircode as they renew, to catch out fraudsters double-insuring their property and people lying about their claims history.

Sure, people can refuse to give it, but I expect that such people will be politely invited to take their business elsewhere.

plodder

marmurr1916 wrote: »

The use of eircodes is not compulsory...

You don't have a choice whether your property receives an Eircode. So, the situation is comparable in that respect. Of course, Loc8 could have taken it upon itself to issue a code for every property in the state, but they might have run into problems with data protection. Anyone could have written to them and said, "I don't want a loc8 code - take mine off your system please". You can't do that with Eircode. That was one of the things they changed in the recent alteration of the Data protection act.

Now, I'm not saying any of the above things are a problem - just pointing out it's absurd to argue that the state being behind Eircode has nothing to do with its level of adoption.

GJG

plodder wrote: »

You don't have a choice whether your property receives an Eircode. So, the situation is comparable in that respect. Of course, Loc8 could have taken it upon itself to issue a code for every property in the state, but they might have run into problems with data protection. Anyone could have written to them and said, "I don't want a loc8 code - take mine off your system please". You can't do that with Eircode. That was one of the things they changed in the recent alteration of the Data protection act.

Yes, this is entirely correct; but I think only a fool could have imagined that when they were told that they didn't have to use Eircode, that meant that they would get a veto over anyone else using an Eircode, even using their house.

plodder wrote: »

Now, I'm not saying any of the above things are a problem - just pointing out it's absurd to argue that the state being behind Eircode has nothing to do with its level of adoption.

Of course the state backing, lots of free media coverage, advertising campaign are behind the rapid uptake in Eircode, as witnessed by the speed at which people are putting their Eircode on their websites. (Since I wrote that post, the ratio has nearly doubled so, on a like-for-like basis use of Eircode on websites is approaching 1,000 times that of Loc8.)

The reason I did the test was because Loc8 supporter(s) made a series of specific claims (No Eircode for the Rock of Cashel, only one Eircode for the whole of the UCD campus, Eircode database over 2GB and too large to fit on any satnav or smartphone). Each claim was made in a strident tone; people who doubted were dismissed in extravagant terms. And each claim turned out to be totally false.

So, when it was said that everybody who looked up their Eircode would just forget it within days, I thought a systematic way to measure the adoption rate would be to see how many people put it on their website.

Of course that says nothing about the reason why the adoption rate is so fast.

marmurr1916

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Yet! It's only a matter of time before it is required when submitting your address to a company or government department with a no postcode, no service rider.

Under what law? When will this law be passed? And since you're able to predict the future, what will the winning eutomillions lottery numbers be this week?

marmurr1916

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Under what law? When will this law be passed? And since you're able to predict the future, what will the winning eutomillions lottery numbers be this week?

If you as a service provider decide that you want a postcode to do business, then there is nothing stopping you insisting that the postcode be provided prior to doing business.

Just like the sign on a pub door "The management reserve the right to refuse entry".

ukoda

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Under what law? When will this law be passed? And since you're able to predict the future, what will the winning eutomillions lottery numbers be this week?

under current law, all the company has to do is update its terms of service to say an eircode is required to avail of their product or service.

marmurr1916

plodder wrote: »

You don't have a choice whether your property receives an Eircode. So, the situation is comparable in that respect.

No it isn't comparable. Just because a unique identifying code has been allocated to each postal address (not to each property - a field is property but it won't have an eircode) doesn't mean its use is compulsory. Now if you were talking about the unique identification code allocated to each registered motor vehicle you might have had a point.

Although it would have been a fairly stupid one since the compulsory display of unique identification codes on motor vehicles (these being linked to yet another set of unique identification codes - VINs) hasn't inhibited the commercial use of motor vehicles by private individuals and organisations.

Now, I'm not saying any of the above things are a problem - just pointing out it's absurd to argue that the state being behind Eircode has nothing to do with its level of adoption.

Just as well I didn't make that argument then isn't it? It's getting a bit tedious responding to posts which either explicitly state or imply that I've made arguments which I clearly haven't made.

If you're going to reply to my posts please address points and arguments I've made rather than ones you've imagined I've made.

By the way which section of the Data Protection Act prevents Loc8 (or any other company) from setting up a database that allocates a unique identification code to every address? The DPA gives you a right to see what information a data controller has on you and to ask for its removal or alteration if it's wrong, out of date or if it's no longer required for the purposes for which it was created or acquired.

marmurr1916

[Deleted User] wrote: »

If you as a service provider decide that you want a postcode to do business, then there is nothing stopping you insisting that the postcode be provided prior to doing business.

Just like the sign on a pub door "The management reserve the right to refuse entry".

Those signs have no legal status whatsoever. The management cannot refuse entry solely on the basis of race or membership of the traveller community for example. There have been plenty of examples where pubs have lost legal actions because they refused to admit Travellers.

marmurr1916

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Those signs have no legal status whatsoever. The management cannot refuse entry solely on the basis of race or membership of the traveller community for example. There have been plenty of examples where pubs have lost legal actions because they refused to admit Travellers.

Would you be willing to take a service provider to court if they refuse to serve you without a postcode?