From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 6 22:30:59 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i372UwX21108; Tue, 6 Apr 2004 22:30:59 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 22:30:59 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200404070230.i372UwX21108@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #166 TELECOM Digest Tue, 6 Apr 2004 22:31:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 166 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson RJ11 Line 1/2 Splitter - Do These Still Exist? (Alex) Final Report on Blackout (Daeron) Philly Area Miliwatt (1004 Hz) Test Number Needed: (T. Gerald Dyar) Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle (J Levine) Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle (S Sobol) Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle (Thomas) Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle (CharlesH) One Nation Under Internet Protocol (VOIP News) Nouvelle base de connaissances pour les PABX Alcatel (Simon Templar) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 15:10:07 -0500 From: Alex Subject: RJ11 Line 1/2 Splitter - Do These Still Exist? Hi all, Many years ago, I used to find the RJ11 splitters that seperated the two pairs of lines into Line 1 and Line 2 for dual-line phone jacks. Now'days, I'm having trouble locating one. I've even talked to folks from SBC and they say the splitters aren't common anymore and are hard to find. Does anyone know of a supplier that still produces or sells these splitters? I'm not talking about a y-splitter where one analog line is split to two, but one that physically splits the two pairs of lines. Thanks in advance. Alex. ------------------------------ From: doug_mentohl@yahoo.co.uk (Daeron) Subject: Final Report on Blackout Date: 6 Apr 2004 12:38:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Blackout remedies languish, panel says Lorraine Mirabella April 06 2004 The nation's worst blackout ... could have been prevented and could reoccur if a series of recommendations ... are not adopted. The Task Force sent its final report to President Bush and Canada's prime minister . An interim report released in November by the U.S. Department of Energy blamed a constellation of failures at Ohio's FirstEnergy Corp. as the principal trigger. It pointed to the loss of three high-voltage transmission lines in northern Ohio -- which short-circuited after the lines sagged onto untrimmed trees -- and to a failure of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. operators to recognize and contain the problem ... http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-te.bz.grid06apr06,0,5223403.story?coll=bal-technology-headlines ------------------------------ From: T. Gerald Dyar Subject: Philly Area Miliwatt (1004 Hz) Test Number Needed Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 19:03:31 GMT I posted this message on comp.dcom.telecom.tech with no luck so I thought I'd try here. My daughter lives in a very old row house in the Philadelphia area and the inside wiring is a mess. I live in CT but on my next visit to her I want to bring down my telephone test set and check out the inside wiring to find out what needs fixing. She's already determined, using the NIC, that the problem is not with the tel line coming in. Since I'm from CT I need the local number there, nearest to 215-887 to get the 1004 hz, miliwatt, test tone. Contact me direct if you don't want to divulge this to the world. Thanks, Gerry ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle Date: 6 Apr 2004 17:46:40 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess from what you are saying, that > VISA (formerly known as BankAmericard) is no longer a Bank of America > in San Francisco product, as it was back in the 1950's and 60's. PAT] Nope, since about 1976 it's belongs to Visa Internnational which is owned by the 21,000 banks that issue Visa cards. Now that you mention it, the Bank of America isn't the Bank of America any more, either. In 1998 it was absorbed by Nationsbank, an aggressive east coast bank, which renamed the combined entity to Bank of America because the name was so well known. Now Bank of America-Nationsbank is absorbing Fleet Bank, a regional bank in the northeast which had already vacuumed up a lot of banks in New York and New England, with the whole mess to be called Bank of America. So the old San Francisco bank is still in there somewhere, but there's a whole lot of other stuff as well. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 17:41:29 -0500 TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Hudson Leighton : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess from what you are saying, that > VISA (formerly known as BankAmericard) is no longer a Bank of America > in San Francisco product, as it was back in the 1950's and 60's. PAT] My VISA Check Card is a Bank of America product, but that's because it's a Bank of America debit card connected to a Bank of America checking account. BTW, I thought BofA was still headquartered in SFO too, until very recently. I learned that when they merged with NationsBank (headquartered in Charlotte), Charlotte became the headquarters for the merged company. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 00:02:13 +0100 From: Graeme Thomas Subject: Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle [ Pat: Please remove my address from this if you want to publish it in the digest. Leaving my name in is OK. ] In article , Hudson Leighton writes: > Because Visa/MC do not process credit cards, they are just marketing > companies, the cards are issued by banks ( the meaning of "bank" is a > little hazy with credit cards), the merchant then contracts with a > "processor" which then bills the various "banks" and then deposits the > funds in the merchants bank account. Visa and MasterCard are consortia of issuing and acquiring banks. They are not just marketing companies, although it's true they do a lot of that. They own their own networks, and humungous processing centres. The way it typically works is as follows. When you buy something, the card terminal sends a AUTHREQ (authorization request) to the merchant's acquiring institution. The message is then routed through the appropriate network to the issuing bank, who check to see if there are sufficient funds in the account. The amount of the transaction is blocked in the account, which means that it's still there, but spoken for. The acknowledgement is sent back, by the same route, to the merchant. If everything is OK, there will be a 6-digit authorization code on the slip. At the end of the day, the whole batch of transactions is sent as a "financial" to the network. There is a vast sort/merge, and the rebatched transactions are sent on to the issuers. The net payments are made overnight, and that's when the merchants get their money. The blocked amounts are reinstated to the accounts, and the real transaction amounts are deducted from each account. (It can happen that the authorized amount and the transaction amount differ.) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess from what you are saying, that > VISA (formerly known as BankAmericard) is no longer a Bank of America > in San Francisco product, as it was back in the 1950's and 60's. PAT] No. It's an international consortium. In article , Wesrock@aol.com writes: > It was my understanding that there is no "Visa/MC" entity, in > the sense you are using the term, to send them to. Visa and MC are > associations of financial institutuions which interchange their > transactions with one another. That's not really true. Visa and MC own their own processing centres, which route all the transactions. They will even do quite a lot of the work for smaller member banks, for a fee. > Perhaps others can contradict or expand on this, which is seems > to be on-topic as it intimately involves telecommuniciations and its > processing. (It seems to me than in the time when all credit card > transactions were done on paper, the actual slips were sent between > banks, often represented by associations which handle the business > for their members.) Wal-Mart and many other merchants now operate in > a totally paperless mode, and you sign on a pad which captures the > image of your signature electronically. If the customer disputes the charge, then the "paperwork" all follows. Even if the original paperwork was on dead trees, the transfers are usually done electronically. As a matter of curiosity, as soon as you dispute the charge the merchant repays the money (it's deducted from his account), and he only gets it back if the resulting investigation shows that the dispute was false. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At our Walmart Supercenter here, unless > they changed procedures lately, (I rarely ever go there, I hate the > place) if the plastic is used as a 'debit' card the clerk has you put > in your pin on a keypad. If the plastic is used as a 'credit' card > the clerk prints out a little receipt and has you sign it. If the > plastic just has a bank name on it, they usually assume it is a credit > card. PAT] The decision on whether to use a signature-based system or a PIN-based system is done by the card issuer. You can have PIN-based credit cards, or signature-based debit cards, although I admit both are rarer than the other way around. In the UK we're moving (oh so slowly) to "chip and PIN". Each payment card will be a smart card, with a secure chip on it, and all security will be PIN-based. The transaction mechanisms are subtly different from the one I just outlined, but with much of the same flavour. One difference is that the card can, under some circumstances, authorize transactions on its own behalf, without setting up a connection to its issuing bank. The smart cards are being touted mainly as a security feature ("an end to all fraud"! ha!), but they will reduce network traffic. Graeme Thomas ------------------------------ From: hoch@exemplary.invalid (CharlesH) Subject: Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle Date: 7 Apr 2004 00:56:59 GMT Organization: http://newsguy.com In article , Hudson Leighton wrote: > In article , johnl@iecc.com (John R. > Levine) wrote: >>> What I do not understand is why an outfit like Walmart, as big as >>> they are, does not process their own Visa/MC paper, sending it >>> directly to Visa/MC instead of going through a third party place like >>> First Data Merchants? Isn't FDMC in this case a sort of 'bottom >>> feeder' a lot like the 'operator service companies' > Because Visa/MC do not process credit cards, they are just marketing > companies, the cards are issued by banks ( the meaning of "bank" is a > little hazy with credit cards), the merchant then contracts with a > "processor" which then bills the various "banks" and then deposits the > funds in the merchants bank account. > American Express and Discover are done a little differently, but the > end result is about the same. > -Hudson > http://www.skypoint.com/~hudsonl > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess from what you are saying, that > VISA (formerly known as BankAmericard) is no longer a Bank of America > in San Francisco product, as it was back in the 1950's and 60's. PAT] Visa started out as BankAmericard from Bank of America. Many years ago it became an independent company. They act as a clearing house for Visa transactions, between the merchant's bank and the bank issuing the Visa card. They have several huge data centers around the world to handle those millions of transactions/day. ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 13:13:58 -0400 Subject: One Nation Under Internet Protocol Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://news.com.com/2010-7352-5185413.html By J. William Gurley "Gonna keep on tryin' Till I reach the highest ground." --Stevie Wonder, Higher Ground Take a trip to Korea or Japan, and you will immediately have a new appreciation for the definition of broadband. There, it is not uncommon for a consumer's Internet connection to breathe a blazingly fast 10-plus megabits per second. In Japan, Yahoo BB goes a step further, trumpeting a full 45-megabits-per-second offering for a cool $37 per month (about 3,892 yen). Still not amazed? Korea boasts a mind-boggling 80 percent broadband penetration rate, while the United States still ambles around half that. That said, even the states' 42 percent penetration rate is deceptive, as the U.S. version of broadband is a far cry from these Asian fire hoses. What is most striking about the notion of a 45-megabit Internet Protocol connection is the overwhelming universality of such an incredibly high-speed packet-based conduit. Into it melt all forms of media and communications: voice, data, video and any other application or service you might imagine. There is no need to consider bringing multiple connections or service providers into your home, for this network can do everything you need and more. Early signs in Japan are consistent with this notion. Yahoo BB announced a stunning 80 percent attachment rate on its IP-based phone service. It is now promoting an IP-based set-top box for the ultimate in personalized television. One cannot help but wonder if we are headed for a similar fate in the United States -- a single super high-speed pipe into the home that carries all media forms over a simple, standard IP connection. [.....] Additionally, the many state municipalities around the country are eager to place their hands on voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. A poorly executed policy could in fact "increase" the long-term pricing on voice services for all users. For example, would you really tax a free service? The regulators are supposedly looking after the best interest of consumers, but it is hard for them not to look after their own longevity as well. [Comment: I am so glad to see that I'm not the only one who's had this thought. Many state Public Utility Commissions have a division entirely dedicated to regulating telephone service, and if traditional telephone service as we know it goes away, they may be left with nothing to regulate -- unless, of course, the states decide that there is a need for some quality-of-service standards for broadband providers that need enforcement. I don't think that's at all an unrealistic scenario; as broadband becomes more important in our lives state officials may well demand accountability for service outages, particularly if no truly viable competition develops among broadband providers in most areas of a state. People will have the essentially the same types of complaints they have about phone service - service outages, billing issues, what constitutes a minimal quality of service - and I fully expect that as state regulators are relieved of their role as the overseers of voice traffic, in at least some states they may take on the larger role of regulating broadband providers. I can almost certainly see a call for regulation if broadband providers deliberately attempt to "break" the IP network in an effort to protect their video (and potentially voice) revenue streams, as is suggested later in this article. The day I can't use a VoIP provider of my choice because the cable company is deliberately messing with their packets is the day I'll be first in line calling for their heads on a platter, and if it takes state or federal regulation to make them behave, then so be it. I'm certain that not everyone share my opinion on that (particularly those in the libertarian think tanks that like to make so much noise on such issues), and whether state-level regulation would have an ultimately desirable outcome is certainly open to debate. And of course the broadband providers would fight any such attempt at regulation tooth-and-nail, but if they start messing with packets they'll bring it on themselves. Anyone, one would hope that none of the efforts we see to regulate VoIP at the state level are in reality driven by the desire of regulators to keep their jobs. One would hope that, but that's not necessarily the way I'd bet. This is an interesting article and worth reading, even if you don't agree with every point made (neither do I).] Full story at: http://news.com.com/2010-7352-5185413.html How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: le_prelude@yahoo.fr (simon templar) Subject: Nouvelle base de connaissances pour les PABX Alcatel Date: 6 Apr 2004 19:02:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Bonjour tout le monde, Je viens de mettre en route un site web avec une base de connaissances (en cours de creation) des switches OmniPCX 4400 et ENTREPRISE ALCATEL. J'espere que tout le monde s'en servira, et que ca nous facilitera la vie ! http://www.gadot.net En haut a gauche de la page, il y a un lien "ALCATEL". A+ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #166 ******************************