This is a story about disappointment.

Exactly one year ago I met the secretary-general of BIC briefly. He critisized Prefixlist for not being accurate and containing a lot of outdated prefixes. I told him there were a lot of prefixes not registered by BIC too. And so we agreed some kind of cooperation. I deleted about 700 prefixes that were indeed outdated or fake and impossible to proof. A new column was introduced on the site to mention the proof that was available. I think Prefixlist is the most accurate and reliable containersite on the internet now. It has become an almost daily job to keep up in this everchanging containerworld and adapt the site. The secretary-general agreed to do something about the unregistered prefixes that were listed on Prefixlist in order to equal the BIC list and Prefixlist as much as possible, but so far almost no progress in this.  And too bad they don't want to talk about it. BIC seems to be an ivory tower impossible to penetrate. On Prefixlist are a lot of 'double prefixes'.  It means that one company is paying a lot of money to register the prefix and an other company uses the same prefix for free and no serious action is taken to prevent this. No legal protection whatsoever. I offered them help outside the office, but so far they rejected. They stay in their Paris tower waiting for companies to come to them. Registration remains a voluntarily thing. Unregistered containers are shipped throughout the world without any delay.

On Prefixlist however improvements go on. It is now possible to calculate your Check Digit online. See the CheckDigit Page for this. The searchengine works properly now, so a little compliment this time for the IT specialists backstage. You'll find the searchengine in the top menu bar.  Next year we'll work on a major change in the picture database. This will take some serious work, so again a little patience is needed.

By the way, did you know you don't have to log in at Twitter to see the latest updates on Prefixlist? (www.twitter.com/prefixlist)

I wish all the visitors of Prefixlist a wonderful warm Christmas and a succesful New Year. May all your wishes come true.

Lorenz ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )