On 09-Mar-12 11:29, John Levine wrote:
Really? I've been doing business travel for nearly 15 years, and I've
_never_ run into a place on any of those trips that didn't accept my
(corporate) AmEx.

Do you travel outside the US much?

A fair bit, but not as much as within the US.

In Europe, everyone takes MC/V, only higher end places take Amex, like
it used to be in the US.

On business trips, I stay/dine at "business class" establishments, which
all seem to take AmEx. I wouldn't consider most of them "higher end",
but that's a matter of perspective.

On personal trips overseas, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the
budget-oriented places I stay/dine don't take AmEx, but I never checked
since I was using a personal V/MC card or cash.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On 09-Mar-12 03:48, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 00:34:27 on Fri, 9 Mar 2012,
Stephen Sprunk remarked:

There's always a small risk, and sometimes the ticket vendor will
make a
[mobile] phone call if a particular cardholder raises suspicions.

If mobile service is available, why not just authorize every card and
avoid the risk of being sued for discrimination--which will cost far,
far more (even if you win) than losing the occasional fare?

Because authorising transactions with a voice call is time consuming,
and may not even be possible as a routine thing.

There is no good reason to do the authorization as a voice call when
there are mobile data terminals that can do it in seconds.

The existing "good reason" is that the mobile data terminals haven't
been designed yet,

They existed over a decade ago.

let alone deployed. And the previous generation has at least 10 years
life left in them.

They were obsolete the day they were purchased; how long they're capable
of meeting obsolete needs before turning into paperweights is not
terribly relevant.

Of course, if there is no mobile data service, there probably isn't
mobile voice service either, so there is no difference in that respect.

Far from it, data service on what's a perfectly good voice service can
be excruciatingly slow. There's vast areas that still only have 2.5G
You'd actually need to use SMS for it to work at all.

The "slowness" of 2G/2.5G is mostly the connection delay while a
separate data channel is set up, which takes several seconds, after
which the data flows reasonably quickly. The main advantage of 3G for
most applications (including this one) is being able to send data
_sooner_, not being able to send it _faster_.

Worst case, the terminal could batch up a series of authorization
attempts for when it next passes into a coverage area; if one of the
responses is a failure, it could notify the conductor, who would then go
back to the customer

Assuming he can find them. It's not uncommon for trains to be standing
room only.

If the train is that packed, how much progress through the train is he
likely to be making anyway?

Note that overdraft (at least in the US) is _not_ guaranteed; the bank
can refuse to honor any debit against insufficient funds at their
whim--but they generally will, since it allows them to charge the
customer massive fees on top of the debit itself.

In the UK you'd only get fees (rather than the agreed interest rate) on
an unapproved overdraft.

Sorry, I don't think the above was clear. Most US banks will _honor_ a
debit against insufficient funds because it allows them to charge the
customer massive fees on top of the debit itself.

For instance, my bank charges USD 35 per overdraft transaction plus USD
5 for each additional day the account has a negative balance.
Obviously, it's in their interests to allow customers to overdraft as
much as they want--as long as the bank can be reasonably sure the
customer will _eventually_ bring the balance up to zero, eg. because
their paychecks are automatically deposited in the account.

I seem to recall hearing about accounts in other countries having a
guaranteed overdraft capability; that would be a "line of credit" in the
US, which is separate from a checking account.

Yes, an overdraft facility in the UK is the same as your "line of
credit", and once set up would have to be specifically revoked with
notice to the accountholder.

As detailed more fully in the part you snipped, that's not how it works
in the US. "Overdraft" on a checking account and a "line of credit"
account are separate services.

Speaking as an employee of a tech products vendor, customers are now
demanding full ROI in 12-18 months, which gives them immediate cost
savings even on a 36-month depreciation schedule.

It's an interesting aspiration, but what happens if such a return is
*impossible*, given the development, manufacturing and operating costs
of the equipment.

If there is no ROI, then customers won't buy it.

There's no *extra* revenue stream here - just reducing
Credit Card fraud a little, and the "acceptable ROI" solution here was
C&P, not "being online all the time".

The return would logically come from (a) not accepting invalid credit
and charge cards and (b) accepting valid debit cards.

I don't understand why the UK hasn't seen the same progression,
especially given you only need to build out one network instead of the
redundant, mutually incompatible networks we had to build.

Read the OFCOM report I linked to a couple of days ago. And by the way,
we have four separate networks (used to be five, but two merged),
because apparently competition and a free market is best (!). Or if you
count GSM and 3G, it's actually seven networks (one is 3G only).

Is there no domestic "roaming" between carriers?

In the US, phones will _prefer_ towers from their own carrier but can
roam to any tower from any carrier using the _same technology_, eg. a
T-Mobile (GSM) phone will connect to an AT&T (GSM) tower if a T-Mobile
(GSM) tower isn't available. When I refer to "redundant, mutually
incompatible networks", I mean that a Verizon (TDMA or CDMA) or Sprint
(CDMA or iDEN) phone is simply incapable of using an AT&T (GSM) or
T-Mobile (GSM) tower. And there are many, many companies that set up
their own towers in rural areas just to handle roaming phones from the
major carriers; they may have no subscribers of their own.

Critically important is that customers who subscribe to a "national"
plan are _not_ charged for (domestic) roaming, so coverage is a matter
of technology and towers, not carrier.

International roaming is another matter, but most US phones (TDMA, CDMA,
iDEN or 1900MHz GSM) don't work in most other countries anyway.
Tri-band GSM phones are the main exception, and int'l roaming for them
is ridiculously expensive--but at least it works. (CDMA and 1900MHz GSM
are also available in Canada, and that roaming is ridiculously expensive
as well.)

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

Stephen Sprunk wrote:

International roaming is another matter, but most US phones (TDMA, CDMA,
iDEN or 1900MHz GSM) don't work in most other countries anyway.
Tri-band GSM phones are the main exception, and int'l roaming for them
is ridiculously expensive--but at least it works. (CDMA and 1900MHz GSM
are also available in Canada, and that roaming is ridiculously expensive
as well.)

My Motorola V195S was a quad-band GSM.

If you're in another country with a GSM handset, pre-pay and swap SIM cards.
Leave a message in your voice mail with your temporary phone number in
that foreign country, or just return the message left in voice mail if
it can't wait till you return.

International roaming charges would wipe out any profit from that
overseas business trip.

In message , at 18:04:27 on Fri, 9 Mar 2012,
Stephen Sprunk remarked:
The existing "good reason" is that the mobile data terminals haven't
been designed yet,

They existed over a decade ago.

Not that included the ticket-issuing printer, fares table etc.

let alone deployed. And the previous generation has at least 10 years
life left in them.

They were obsolete the day they were purchased; how long they're capable
of meeting obsolete needs before turning into paperweights is not
terribly relevant.

It is, when there's no money to replace them, nor much of a need to
either.

The "slowness" of 2G/2.5G is mostly the connection delay while a
separate data channel is set up, which takes several seconds, after
which the data flows reasonably quickly.

I use data on the move a lot. And was very disappointed on a recent trip
to London when several times I could get a 2.5G signal, and "connect",
but data was extremely slow (order of a few bytes per second).

Worst case, the terminal could batch up a series of authorization
attempts for when it next passes into a coverage area; if one of the
responses is a failure, it could notify the conductor, who would then go
back to the customer

Assuming he can find them. It's not uncommon for trains to be standing
room only.

If the train is that packed, how much progress through the train is he
likely to be making anyway?

Enough to check/sell tickets, if he doesn't need to retrace his steps
all the time.

Note that overdraft (at least in the US) is _not_ guaranteed; the bank
can refuse to honor any debit against insufficient funds at their
whim--but they generally will, since it allows them to charge the
customer massive fees on top of the debit itself.

In the UK you'd only get fees (rather than the agreed interest rate) on
an unapproved overdraft.

Sorry, I don't think the above was clear. Most US banks will _honor_ a
debit against insufficient funds because it allows them to charge the
customer massive fees on top of the debit itself.

For instance, my bank charges USD 35 per overdraft transaction plus USD
5 for each additional day the account has a negative balance.

In the UK that would be known as an unapproved overdraft. In other
words, they'll let you go overdrawn, but aren't very happy about it.

I seem to recall hearing about accounts in other countries having a
guaranteed overdraft capability; that would be a "line of credit" in the
US, which is separate from a checking account.

Yes, an overdraft facility in the UK is the same as your "line of
credit", and once set up would have to be specifically revoked with
notice to the accountholder.

As detailed more fully in the part you snipped, that's not how it works
in the US. "Overdraft" on a checking account and a "line of credit"
account are separate services.

And, I'm telling you about what happens in the UK.

Speaking as an employee of a tech products vendor, customers are now
demanding full ROI in 12-18 months, which gives them immediate cost
savings even on a 36-month depreciation schedule.

It's an interesting aspiration, but what happens if such a return is
*impossible*, given the development, manufacturing and operating costs
of the equipment.

If there is no ROI, then customers won't buy it.

And the customers (the train operators) aren't... as I've explained.

There's no *extra* revenue stream here - just reducing
Credit Card fraud a little, and the "acceptable ROI" solution here was
C&P, not "being online all the time".

The return would logically come from (a) not accepting invalid credit
and charge cards and (b) accepting valid debit cards.

There doesn't appear to be a problem with them being accepted today. Of
course, it helps that for train tickets (and car park payment - another
common non-online, and thus non-authorised, transaction) the "cost of
sales" is virtually zero.

I don't understand why the UK hasn't seen the same progression,
especially given you only need to build out one network instead of the
redundant, mutually incompatible networks we had to build.

Read the OFCOM report I linked to a couple of days ago. And by the way,
we have four separate networks (used to be five, but two merged),
because apparently competition and a free market is best (!). Or if you
count GSM and 3G, it's actually seven networks (one is 3G only).

Is there no domestic "roaming" between carriers?

No there isn't (apart from between the two carriers who recently merged:
T-Mobile and Orange).

Critically important is that customers who subscribe to a "national"
plan are _not_ charged for (domestic) roaming, so coverage is a matter
of technology and towers, not carrier.

Some people would prefer if it waslike that in the UK as well, but the
idea was that (because it's perhaps a much smaller and denser country)
all the networks would build out everywhere. But in practice there are
many blank spots away from cities and highways.

International roaming is another matter, but most US phones (TDMA, CDMA,
iDEN or 1900MHz GSM) don't work in most other countries anyway.
Tri-band GSM phones are the main exception, and int'l roaming for them
is ridiculously expensive--but at least it works. (CDMA and 1900MHz GSM
are also available in Canada, and that roaming is ridiculously expensive
as well.)

Across Europe (which in some sense is rather like a Californian roaming
in Texas) the regulators have been steadily reducing the cost of
roaming. My own choice of voice carrier (Virgin) was made because their
International Roaming was about half the price of others.
--
Roland Perry

Miles Bader writes:

Phil writes:
As Brewers law states, the quality of the beer is inversely proportional
to the price.

Hmm, I don't think I've _ever_ lived in a place where that's true...

It is almost always true, posh hotels very rarely sell proper beer, and
if they do it use usually something bland and not very well kept. It is
usually just lager and keg beer.

Go to a local pub however and the beer will be proper, often local.

Phil

Roland Perry writes:

I use data on the move a lot. And was very disappointed on a recent
trip to London when several times I could get a 2.5G signal, and
"connect", but data was extremely slow (order of a few bytes per
second).
Often in the middle of cities the networks can get very congested, if you
want to stream radio to your phone you are better off in the suburbs.

I am suprised you needed to use 2.5G in London, in my experience 3G
coverage is pretty unversal. Even in rural Shropshire I rarely need to
use 2.5G.


Is there no domestic "roaming" between carriers?

No there isn't (apart from between the two carriers who recently
merged: T-Mobile and Orange).
3 also roam onto Orange (2.5G) where they have no network
coverage. AFAIK they don't roam onto Orange 3G or T-Mobile.

Phil

On 10-Mar-12 04:43, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 18:04:27 on Fri, 9 Mar 2012,
Stephen Sprunk remarked:
The existing "good reason" is that the mobile data terminals haven't
been designed yet,

They existed over a decade ago.

Not that included the ticket-issuing printer, fares table etc.

Receipt printers, yes. Fare tables? I'm not sure, but that's a
relatively simple customization for what would presumably be a large order.

let alone deployed. And the previous generation has at least 10 years
life left in them.

They were obsolete the day they were purchased; how long they're capable
of meeting obsolete needs before turning into paperweights is not
terribly relevant.

It is, when there's no money to replace them,

.... which is why savvy customers look at the ROI: you pay for capital
assets with the cost savings from employing those assets.

nor much of a need to either.

Perhaps, perhaps not.

The "slowness" of 2G/2.5G is mostly the connection delay while a
separate data channel is set up, which takes several seconds, after
which the data flows reasonably quickly.

I use data on the move a lot. And was very disappointed on a recent trip
to London when several times I could get a 2.5G signal, and "connect",
but data was extremely slow (order of a few bytes per second).

Even ancient 2G systems could do 9.6kbit/s, and 2.5G could do
56-115kbit/s (GPRS) or 237kbit/s (EDGE).

For any of those to drop to "a few bytes per second" would require
signal conditions so bad that the connection would fail.

Speaking as an employee of a tech products vendor, customers are now
demanding full ROI in 12-18 months, which gives them immediate cost
savings even on a 36-month depreciation schedule.

It's an interesting aspiration, but what happens if such a return is
*impossible*, given the development, manufacturing and operating costs
of the equipment.

If there is no ROI, then customers won't buy it.

And the customers (the train operators) aren't... as I've explained.

Then either the vendor is doing a poor job of selling their product or
that niche really doesn't need to be filled. Given how incompetent some
vendors are, I wouldn't assume it's always the latter.

There's no *extra* revenue stream here - just reducing
Credit Card fraud a little, and the "acceptable ROI" solution here was
C&P, not "being online all the time".

The return would logically come from (a) not accepting invalid credit
and charge cards and (b) accepting valid debit cards.

There doesn't appear to be a problem with them being accepted today. Of
course, it helps that for train tickets (and car park payment - another
common non-online, and thus non-authorised, transaction) the "cost of
sales" is virtually zero.

The marginal cost of service (not cost of sales, which refers only to
selling the ticket itself) may be close to zero, but unless you have
spare capacity, there is an opportunity cost: the non-paying "customer"
prevented a paying customer from using your service--and giving you
money for it. There is also opportunity cost in not accepting money
from potential paying customers who only have a debit card.

Obviously, one would need some analysis to figure out if these costs
were more or less than the cost of better terminals. If more, you buy;
if not, you don't. Also, since this is a gaping security hole just
waiting to be exploited by the masses, you would have to redo this
analysis frequently--and the cost of doing that would need to be added
to the costs above.

It might end up being worth the upgrade just to not have to do the
analysis--or to avoid the risk of making the papers when a few million
teens figure out they can easily beat your system and ride all over the
country for free without getting caught. All it takes these days is one
Facebook post that goes viral.

International roaming is another matter, but most US phones (TDMA, CDMA,
iDEN or 1900MHz GSM) don't work in most other countries anyway.
Tri-band GSM phones are the main exception, and int'l roaming for them
is ridiculously expensive--but at least it works. (CDMA and 1900MHz GSM
are also available in Canada, and that roaming is ridiculously expensive
as well.)

Across Europe (which in some sense is rather like a Californian roaming
in Texas)

In a distance sense, perhaps, but we have (roughly) the same carriers in
both places, unlike Europe. However, despite the constant trashing of
each other in advertisements, they understand that it's better to
cooperate on the back end and allow free (domestic) roaming than have
customers complaining that their phone doesn't work when their friend's
phone from another carrier does.

Their accountants also constantly analyze _where_ they're paying other
carriers for roaming and what it would cost to put up their own towers
(or put their own antennae on that carrier's tower) in such places.
This also tends to push down roaming charges: if a tower operator
charges too much, other carriers will put up their own towers in the
same place and the original tower owner will end up with nothing.

the regulators have been steadily reducing the cost of roaming.

Our regulators don't care since _customers_ don't pay for roaming;
that's a problem for the carriers to hash out between themselves.

Some carriers don't have any towers at all; they rely exclusively on
roaming to another carrier's towers. Others, like T-Mobile, focus their
coverage--and advertising--on high-density areas and rely on roaming for
coverage elsewhere.

Another factor is that FCC sells spectrum per "market" rather than
nationwide, as I understand is commonly done in other countries; this
has a significant affect on the economics of putting up towers.

My own choice of voice carrier (Virgin) was made because their
International Roaming was about half the price of others.

That's just not a consideration here for several reasons, some good and
some bad.

OTOH, I do remember the days of paying roaming charges on my 1G phone
even a few miles from home. Almost from the beginning, though, 2G
carriers offered "national" plans at a lower price than 1G "local"
plans, which was a huge incentive for most customers to change even
though the coverage (especially in rural areas) wasn't nearly as good.
AT&T's national 1G service rapidly became unprofitable, and they
invested a lot of money in rural 2G coverage so they could dismantle
their 1G network.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

Stephen Sprunk writes:


Even ancient 2G systems could do 9.6kbit/s, and 2.5G could do
56-115kbit/s (GPRS) or 237kbit/s (EDGE).

For any of those to drop to "a few bytes per second" would require
signal conditions so bad that the connection would fail.

The signal could be fine, the problem could be the backhaul.

BTW there is very little EDGE in the UK. It was only introduced by the networks
which had the original non-3G iPhone (Orange and O2).

Phil

Roland Perry writes:

I wonder how many retail businesses accept only plastic ?

It's quite difficult to buy airline tickets with cash (notwithstanding
the alarms bells that would ring at Homeland Security).

Buy the airline "gift cards" at the supermarket....

--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

Phil writes:
Miles Bader writes:
As Brewers law states, the quality of the beer is inversely proportional
to the price.

Hmm, I don't think I've _ever_ lived in a place where that's true...

It is almost always true, posh hotels very rarely sell proper beer, and
if they do it use usually something bland and not very well kept. It is
usually just lager and keg beer.

Go to a local pub however and the beer will be proper, often local.

No doubt, but that doesn't generalize -- the cheapest beer is still
typically the nastiest (bars/pubs where the emphasis is on "get you
drunk / get in a fight").

-miles

--
Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not
well enough to lend to.