From gletham@axys.com Fri Jun 18 11:15:21 1999 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id LAA34408 for ; Fri, 18 Jun 1999 11:15:19 -0700 Received: from cheddar.direct.ca (cheddar.direct.ca [199.60.229.16]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.06) with ESMTP id LAA24404 for ; Fri, 18 Jun 1999 11:15:16 -0700 Received: from vic-53-0115.direct.ca ([216.66.129.15] helo=instant.direct.ca) by cheddar.direct.ca with smtp (Exim 2.02 #20) id 10v38n-0000yd-00 for waphgis@u.washington.edu; Fri, 18 Jun 1999 11:13:26 -0700 Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.19990618111725.007e3390@direct.ca> X-Sender: gletham#axys.com@direct.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 11:17:25 -0700 To: waphgis@u.washington.edu From: "G. Letham" Subject: Re: Free Zipcodes? In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990618131552.01ed66f8@iris.caliper.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think that uptodate zip codes (in a polygonal coverage) are a steal at $295 Is this data of a reasonable quality? I love to see a small sample set if possible. Glenn At 01:15 PM 6/18/99 -0400, you wrote: >Richard: > >>Where can one find free Zipcodes? Yes ... really! My shop spends quite a >lot every >>year to get the latest Zipcode boundaries from the usual suspects. And >then we can't >>give them to anyone without spending a whole lot more. Why should we have >to do that? >>The USPS must have them ... right? Certainly the Zipcodes are public >property. Any >>ideas? > >Wrong. ZIP Codes are not areas, they are lists of addresses. The USPS does >not create ZIP Code boundaries, but companies like Geographic Data >Technology do. It is not easy, and they charge for it. We sell current ZIP >Code boundaries created from the quarterly GDT data, and a big portion of >our price ($295 for the whole U.S., boundaries and points) is a license fee >to GDT. If you get "free" ZIP Code boundaries, they are most likely > >1) older boundaries (we bundle April 1990 boundaries with our products to >go with the 1990 census data) > >2) a violation of a license agreement > >I've been a student of postal codes for longer than I'll admit, and I wish >that USPS saw ZIP Codes as semi-permanent areas, as in Canada, UK, etc., so >they could publish them affordably and we could base research (especially >longitudinal research) on them. But they don't. Sorry. > o===============================o Glenn Letham (B.Sc.) GIS Analyst Axys Environmental Consulting PO Box 2219 2045 Mills Rd., Sidney, B.C., Canada V8L-3S8 http://www.axys.com/consulting/ E-mail: gletham@axys.com **PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF NEW PHONE NUMBER** Ph: (250)655-2280 Fax:(250)656-4789 o===============================o .