At previous jobs and projects, I have always had the luxury of them already having a subscription service of some kind to zip code and address look-up data. At my current one, I have been tasked with initiating this service. As with most start-up projects, this one wants everything that be can be free to be
free.
In my searches, I have found many supposedly free offers at suspicious-looking web sites as well as paid subscription services/software. However, at About.com I was able to find a zip code database download for free. I normally do not even view a search result from About.com, but I was getting desperate.
Upon investigating the Access database (following a virus-scan and data import to SQL), this database contains not only zip codes, but also latitudes, longtitudes, states, etc. This certainly appears to be one of those "too good to be true moments". The obvious trade-off here is that this information is likely to already be out-dated and it will not be something that can be updated periodically through the web site. Other than that, does anyone know any other details about this particular database?
http://databases.about.com/od/access/a/zipcodedatabase.htm
Alternatively, perhaps you know of a better solution (preferably free or low-cost). We simply need a (accurate) table collection of U.S. cities, states, and zip codes. The states part is easy, but the rest is not quite as easy. :)
Any input or information you can offer is greatly appreciated.