[188686] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeremy Austin)
Tue Apr 12 09:54:59 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <20160412115557.60578.qmail@ary.lan>
From: Jeremy Austin <jhaustin@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 05:54:36 -0800
To: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Cc: niels=nanog@bakker.net, NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 3:55 AM, John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
>
> Please don't guess (like, you know, MaxMind does.) USPS has its own
> database of all of the deliverable addresses in the country. They
> have their problems, but give or take data staleness as buildings
> are built or demolished, that's not one of them.
A qualifier.
USPS has a database of *most* of the deliverable addresses in the country.
I'm in an unorganized borough. The USPS actually has no mandate, funding or
lever that I can pull (that I can find) to keep their database up to date.
Easily 30% of the legitimate addresses in my area are not geocodable nor in
the USPS database.
I suspect that there are areas of my state with an even worse percentage of
unavailable data.
UPS and FedEx rely on the USPS database, but will not lift a finger to fix
this gap.
Even as a municipal body there is no available federal mechanism for
updating the database. I've tried multiple times over 15+ years.
</rant>
So yeah, USPS' database does have its problems.
--
Jeremy Austin
(907) 895-2311
(907) 803-5422
jhaustin@gmail.com
Heritage NetWorks
Whitestone Power & Communications
Vertical Broadband, LLC
Schedule a meeting: http://doodle.com/jermudgeon
