This project met with limited success because of the difficulty in maintaining and updating a large central database. Another problem was the lack of tools for the checking the data supplied, this problem resulted in some erroneous data entering the database. However due to the limited implementations of this service it was decided to defer this until this service gains wider use and acceptance within the Internet community. The DNS is a widely used and well-understood mechanism for providing a distributed database of such information and its extensible nature allows it to be used to disseminate virtually any information. Current DNS servers provide a variety of useful information about hosts in their domain but lack the ability to report a host's geographical location.
Positive numbers indicate locations north of the equator.
The real number describing the latitude encoded as a printable string. Positive numbers indicate locations east of the prime meridian. The precision is limited by 256 charcters. Positive numbers indicate locations above mean sea-level. Although this might not be considered optimal, it allows for a very high degree of precision with an acceptable average encoded record length.