National Postcodes to be introduced

SpaceTime

I would assume 'owned by the state' means that much like telephone numbering, it will be administered similarly to the way ComReg does things rather than being left to An Post.

ComReg's done a pretty good job on the numbering plan to be fair to them.
It's quite logical and straight forward and there are things like standardised codes for voicemail (171) that work on all networks etc etc.
Compared to the UK where the numbering's often pretty illogical i.e. area codes being quite random and based on ancient letter codes that are no longer used and every operator making up its own service codes for voicemail, customer service access etc etc.
Really easy number portability for mobiles etc etc etc.

I like the idea of these things being run as national infrastructural resources.

Amirani

grasmermaximus wrote: »

(About the postcodes, its about time we got these, ordering things online used to be a nightmare! but! why are we going with an English company? Capita Ireland is only a branch of an english company, do we not have any irish contenders we could put forward for this??? )

I despair for this nation and where we are heading..

Or else we could just put it out to tender and give it to the company who comes up with the best process at the best price? I'd argue it's the State's responsibility to make the best use of our tax euros in that way, rather than just giving the tender to Dessie Healy-Rae who operates a business out of his shed in Lahinch.

Delphic

NiallSparky wrote: »

Or else we could just put it out to tender and give it to the company who comes up with the best process at the best price? I'd argue it's the State's responsibility to make the best use of our tax euros in that way, rather than just giving the tender to Dessie Healy-Rae who operates a business out of his shed in Lahinch.

Agreed.

SpaceTime

Under European law, it has to go out to tender EU-wide anyway.

Plenty of Irish companies win UK and other European tenders all the time.
It's not all one-way traffic!

Curly Judge

NiallSparky wrote: »

Or else we could just put it out to tender and give it to the company who comes up with the best process at the best price? I'd argue it's the State's responsibility to make the best use of our tax euros in that way, rather than just giving the tender to Dessie Healy-Rae who operates a business out of his shed in Lahinch.

Why the snobbery?
Surely the person with the best system should be at least given the chance to tender.
After all the Wright Bros. worked out of such a shed and were formally bicycle mechanics.
And I'm sure even the likes of Denis O'Brien had to start somewhere.?

Delphic

Curly Judge wrote: »

Why the snobbery?
Surely the person with the best system should be at least given the chance to tender.
After all the Wright Bros. worked out of such a shed and were formally bicycle mechanics.
And I'm sure even the likes of Denis O'Brien had to start somewhere.?

An EU tender allows anyone to tender. Except for Orville and Wilbur, possibly....

Curly Judge

Delphic wrote: »

An EU tender allows anyone to tender. Except for Orville and Wilbur, possibly....

Because they were Americans or because they are dead?:)

Delphic

Curly Judge wrote: »

Because they were Americans or because they are dead?:)

The latter. I think.

Curly Judge

Delphic wrote: »

An EU tender allows anyone to tender.....

Then why wasn't the likes of Loc 8 allowed to quote?

SpaceTime

We still don't know who the consortium who won it is other than that it's being lead by Capita.

I'd like to see the full details.

Curly Judge

SpaceTime wrote: »

We still don't know who the consortium who won it is other than that it's being lead by Capita.

I'd like to see the full details.

Let's hope they make a better fist of it than the current SUSI or the crowd who handled the e-voting machines.

L1011

Curly Judge wrote: »

Then why wasn't the likes of Loc 8 allowed to quote?

How do you know they didn't tender?

Curly Judge

MYOB wrote: »

How do you know they didn't tender?

I don't!

I would say the biggest problem we'll encounter in the short term / medium term will be UK systems thinking it's an invalid UK post code and refusing to allow people to key it in.
A lot of those systems will check it against a database instantly and dump invalid codes.

Yes, this is a biggie! some websites refuse to accept anything that can't be verified with the GPO database even if the country is set to Ireland.
I still have problems entering my email address on some sites as they never bothered to update their errorchecking software to accept the expanded TLD suffixes that were issues almost a decade ado. :mad:

SpaceTime

Some websites are just badly designed.
Quite a few of them won't accept non-UK or non-US format phone numbers either!

Sadly, no new postcode system will prevent bad web design.

Amirani

Curly Judge wrote: »

Why the snobbery?
Surely the person with the best system should be at least given the chance to tender.
After all the Wright Bros. worked out of such a shed and were formally bicycle mechanics.
And I'm sure even the likes of Denis O'Brien had to start somewhere.?

If Dessie has the best system by all means he should get it. I was mostly making the point that he shouldn't get it purely because his shed is in Lahinch. If Wolfgang in the Bavarian mountains can do it in his shed for half the price and to the same standard, he should get the tender.

Curly Judge

NiallSparky wrote: »

If Dessie has the best system by all means he should get it. I was mostly making the point that he shouldn't get it purely because his shed is in Lahinch. If Wolfgang in the Bavarian mountains can do it in his shed for half the price and to the same standard, he should get the tender.

I absolutely agree.
But did I not read somewhere, [on this very site, I think] that companies with a turnover of less than 40 million were excluded from the tender process on the grounds that lesser fish would not be capable of bringing the project to fruition.
Hardly fair, it seems to me!

SpaceTime

That could be why it's a consortium though.

I'm purely speculating but could it be capita doing the implementation of a smaller company's technology.

Curly Judge

SpaceTime wrote: »

That could be why it's a consortium though.

I'm purely speculating but could it be capita doing the implementation of a smaller company's technology.

Not really. There's a further stipulation that any member of the consortium controlling more than a 25% share has also to have a turnover in excess of 40 million.
So much for the EU policy of opening up the tender process to SME's?

Sam Russell

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I would really still think that using only digits is the way to go. Only a tiny number of countries worldwide use letters in a postcode.

If the postcode does not have letters, is it only for parcels?

I'll get my coat.

Del2005

Curly Judge wrote: »

Not really. There's a further stipulation that any member of the consortium controlling more than a 25% share has also to have a turnover in excess of 40 million.
So much for the EU policy of opening up the tender process to SME's?

SME's are below €50m turnover.

Sam Russell

diomed wrote: »

I haven't read all 95 pages of the thread.

Is there a check digit in the code?

You do not need a check digit as such, only a parity check which means that of the umpteen millions of possible codes, half or threequarters of them are invalid (by an algorithm - and then not all of the rest are allocated). It would need some form of error check to reduce false codes. With seven code positions, there is plenty of room for redundancy. 4 alphanumerics gives a million possible codes, and with three 'county' codes at least a few hundred codes are possible.

Obviously, the rude ones have to be eliminated (A55 H0LE or B00 L0CK) - so some conversion algorithm might be needed.

I cannot understand what is so difficult about designing a postcode system.

Sheldons Brain

Obviously, the rude ones have to be eliminated (A55 H0LE or B00 L0CK)

could you have vanity ones like BIG GAFF?

Sam Russell

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

could you have vanity ones like BIG GAFF?

Only if you live in the appropriate place where it falls. It could be on a large housing estate.:)

Sheldons Brain

Sam Russell wrote: »

Only if you live in the appropriate place where it falls. It could be on a large housing estate.:)

No worse than your des res having the code BAD SLUM!

They should not use things starting with BT to avoid confusion with the occupied territory.

GoCoder

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

No worse than your des res having the code BAD SLUM!

They should not use things starting with BT to avoid confusion with the occupied territory.

It's going to be starting with a letter and two numbers - e.g D24

aimhigh

GoCoder wrote: »

It's going to be starting with a letter and two numbers - e.g D24

Looks like Dublin 6W will have to go so!

Sam Russell

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

No worse than your des res having the code BAD SLUM!

They should not use things starting with BT to avoid confusion with the occupied territory.

Will they make provision for the current BT postcodes, should the Island be re-united at some future date?

ManAboutCouch

Sam Russell wrote: »

Will they make provision for the current BT postcodes, should the Island be re-united at some future date?

As the Northern Irish postcode system is area based, with many properties sharing a postcode, it is quite different from what we are getting down here. Integration of the two systems would be non-trivial.

In any case I don't think this is something that needs consideration for another generation or two, if ever.

Sheldons Brain

It's going to be starting with a letter and two numbers - e.g D24

So A55 W1PE, but not BAD SLUM.

Will they make provision for the current BT postcodes, should the Island be re-united at some future date?

They should perhaps leave a gap for this purpose. Something the phone numbering did, but road numbering did not