RE: Some More Off-List Comments

[Elisabeth Porteneuve <Elisabeth.Porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr>]

The French rules for writing postal address are normalized,
cf. AFNOR XP Z 10-011, May 1997 so called norme 38.
In short:
   6 lignes maximum  
  38 characters maximum per line (including spaces)

The exemple with instructions is given at:
http://preproduction.laposte.fr/sna/saisie/saisiepart.asp

Yes, indeed we have Cedex indications.
Usually Cedex follows city name, something like
        75982 PARIS CEDEX 20
and is NOT a ZIP code
More instructions at:
http://www.laposte.fr/produits/courrier/code.htm

And yes, indeed our ZIP code is on the left side
of the city name - like in almost all continental Europe.

You may note that some European countries add a country prefix
to their ZIP code, but unfortunately this prefix seems
car's plates based, therefore not universal.
It would be much better postal services use ISO 3166-1,
like bank do in their IBAN - International Bank Account Number,
but it is another debate.

I am in favor of 16 characters for ZIP area, rather than 10.
And for postal address respecting countrie's rules
- looking on IANA content for ccTLD is just making me nervous.

Elisabeth Porteneuve
--


-------Original Message---------------------------------------------
From: "Hollenbeck, Scott" <shollenbeck@verisign.com>
To: "'Mike Lampson'" <lampson@iaregistry.com>,
        "'ietf-provregcafaxse'"
	 <ietf-provreg@cafax.se>
Subject: RE: Some More Off-List Comments
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:56:51 -0500 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Lampson [mailto:lampson@iaregistry.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 10:46 AM
> To: Hollenbeck Scott; 'ietf-provregcafaxse'
> Subject: Re: Some More Off-List Comments
> 
> 
> Scott,
> 
> The Universal Postal Union only lists 5 digit postal codes 
> for both France
> and Mexico.

[snip]

FWIW here's the text of the comment I received from Asbjorn Stiera; I don't
think he'll mind me forwarding it to provide context:

"according to a postcode site (1), Mexico allows a 13 digit postal code 
for their "bulk mail code". In addition, in France it is not uncommon to 
append "CEDEX" to the postcode "for business adresses with special 
delivery arrangements" (1)(2), meaning a French post code can 
potentially have 11 digits (5+" "+5)."

I didn't see these possibilities mentioned on the UPU site, though.

> P.S. Without knowing the specific needs (and future changes) of postal
> identifiers used throughout the world, I would say that a 16 
> character limit
> sounds better than 10.

That was part of Asbjorn's argument as well.

-Scott-

(1)
http://www.magma.ca/~djcl/postcd.txt

(2)
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/culture-french-faq/miscellaneous/section-2.html