antoin@eire.com

I’ve written loads about postcodes before. GPS Ireland have published a concept for a postcode system, and Garmin have implemented it in a limited way on their devices. Good for them for publishing their idea.
However, there are a number of big issues with implementing such a system.

- The problem is that it is not much help in and of itself to actually deliver anything, except maybe by helicopter. You need to cross-reference the code against a map database to have any idea of how to effect the delivery or to estimate how long the delivery might take. This means that you are in a proprietary situation right away. There is no free road map database of Ireland.
- Packets and parcels with the code (and packets and parcels will represent 80 percent of delivery items within 20 years) would be practically impossible to sort by hand. You have to key ‘em or scan ‘em to have any idea which bag to put them in. Manual sorting of letters by unskilled workers is still a reality of the Irish postal system at the busiest times. Many other items (like registered letters and packages) are also manually sorted.

- You can have very ambiguous codes. For example, if you have a short back garden, you could end up with a code the same as the guy in the house backing on to you. In some cases, it could be a one-mile drive to the other property.

- The resolution of the system is just not that high for central areas. It’s only 5m. A significant number of houses in Ireland are smaller than 5m on one or other dimension.

- You really need a centralized database of addresses to do most useful tasks with the code (for example, verifying an address as valid). Sorting out this national address database is the big challenge for any postcode implementation. To do the surveys required from scratch for this system would cost at least EUR 15m, and maybe more.

- Google maps is just not an accurate way of determining longitude and lattitude. It is often many inaccurate by tens or even hundreds of metres, because of the way the projections work.

- letters in codes are not a good idea. They make it more likely that the code will be misremembered, misheard or misread. Letters that look alike, or like numbers, such as  ‘S’, ‘Z’ and letters that sound alike, such as ‘N’ and ‘M’ in particular are going to cause confusion and errors.

My own suggestion, which I have worked on with Michael Everson, is to use an all-numbers 5+4 code and base the code on existing administrative divisions, subdividing to road/street and individual delivery point level as necessary, and to number the codes geographically, i.e, the district in the top left of a county is numbered 101 and the district in the bottom right is number 909.

This has the following advantages:
- keeps the implementation costs to a minimum at the outset

- allows items to be be easily sorted manually or by machine

- can be implemented in a basic way without any proprietary databases (although it can conveniently link to proprietary databases)
- integrates well with existing databases (like census, rates office, electoral register and geodirectory)
- does not absolutely require a single address database at the outset (although one may have to be constructed over time on the basis of existing databases)

- allows the system to be extended where necessary (subdivision to provide a unique address for each home is not a big issue in Dublin City for example, but it is a big issue in some rural areas and is more likely to be cost-effective there).
- can cope with certain areas of the country becoming much higher density over time

- makes it obvious for a non-specialist withough special equipment as to where in the country a particular address is located.

This scheme isn’t perfect either of course, but after talking to a lot of people and considering a lot of options, it seems like the best way to do it. We also have a plan for giving the postcode legal backing, without requiring an Act of the Oireachtas.

No free wi-fi in Dublin. No surprise there really - using state money to undercut commercial operators is just not a great way to spend money, even if you have it, which Dublin City Council simply does not.

There is still no reason why Dublin City Council could not help with deploying FON. Plenty of other local authorities have in important European cities, and there are others in progress.

A boards.ie poster says that he lost his parcel when the courier company left package in the bin. Now, this points at a big problem with home delivery. You aren’t always home to receive. But imagine if your courier (or tesco delivery guy or whatver) could let himself or herself in, under controlled, observed conditions? Would that make life easier?

This map shows Chueca in Madrid, which is now 90 percent covered by FON. The whole project cost only thousands of dollars and is sustained through and by the community. [via MV] [link to El Mundo article in Spanish]. It certainly worked out a lot better than the Earthlink/Google project in San Francisco. [link]
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Government Minister to delay Irish postcode system. Not such a big surprise. The plan had been to launch a scheme by January 2008, but the project appears to have become mired.
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The government wants all mobile phones to be registered. According to the Programme for Government, ageed last month:

The government will … require all mobile phones to be registered with name, address and proof of identity in order to stop drug-pushers using untraceable, unregistered phones.

But I got the following email from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources in January this year:

The idea for a Register of mobile phones was extensively reviewed by officials in the Department. There were many complex legal, technical, data protection and practical issues to be considered. In theory, a Register of mobile phones might seem like a good idea. However, having looked at the situation in other administrations, considered the ease with which an unregistered foreign or stolen SIM card can be used and the difficulties that would be posed in verifying identity in the
absence of a national identification card system, and having consulted with the Office of the Attorney General and other interested parties, it was concluded that the proposal would be of limited benefit, in that it would not solve the illegal and inappropriate use of pre-paid mobile
phones and was not practical.

Eoin O’Dell writes about the legal risks of sharing wi-fi and about my presentation about FON at Barcamp. I was amazed to hear that a couple of people have been prosecuted for wi-fi sharing in the UK. This might not seem to make much sense, but it makes FON an even better idea.

Bonus link: my presentation from barcamp

Marko Ahtisaari on why I use Jaiku. Marko’s point about the living phone book seems to me to be an important part of what ordinary people want from online social networking tools.

The government is about to spend an awful lot of money deploying a Tetra system for Irish emergency services. Why are they doing this when they could use the existing 2G and 3G mobile phone networks? This is a question being asked in Sweden where they started implementing Tetra 10 years ago (and it still doesn’t really work).
Is Tetra/Rakel good enough? | stupid.domain.name

Marko Ahtisaari sent me a press release for Blyk. Blyk plans to support its mobile service on the revenues from advertising on the handset. It will be interesting to see how this will be pulled off. Blyk is supposed to launch in the middle of this year.

There is an article in the Guardian about Blyk and its new advertisers too.