Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy[telecom]

[Bill Horne]

Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy

Gerry Smith
Gerald...@huffingtonpost.com

Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic bar
in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can just read
the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the door.

"STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "Thanks For
Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/verizon-sandy-new-york_n_2782664.html

--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)

Think in terms of bridges burning
Think of seasons at an end
- Bob Seger

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <20130302223...@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,

Bill Horne <bi...@horneQRM.net> wrote:

>Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic bar
>in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can just read
>the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the door.
>
>"STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "Thanks For
>Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."

What, exactly, does Verizon have to do with accepting credit cards?
It's not like Verizon is the only way to get an Internet connection in
lower Manhattan, particularly for something as low-bandwidth as
credit-card transaction processing. (Hell, Verizon's own wireless
joint venture can probably provide sufficient network for that.)

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[danny burstein]

In <20130302223...@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Bill Horne <bi...@horneQRM.net> writes:

>Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy

>Gerry Smith
>Gerald...@huffingtonpost.com

>Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic bar
>in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can just read
>the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the door.

>"STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "Thanks For
>Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."

>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/verizon-sandy-new-york_n_2782664.html

There are numerous options available for businesses in that
area to set up for credit cards. Their decision to hold off
on implementing any of them is their own choice.

Just as one of many examples there's the "Square Up" system
which workd fine in any of the post-Sandy area with cell
coverage.

One of the businesses I frequent was still blacked out
and operating only during "sunlight hours", but was handling
credit card transactions through them.

(I actually brought these folk a 6 kw generator and lots
of gasoline after a couple of days of the blackout, so
they had power about a day before Con Ed re-lit the area).

But yes, there are credit card options a'plenty.

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[Doug McIntyre]

wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) writes:
>In article <20130302223...@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,
>Bill Horne <bi...@horneQRM.net> wrote:

>>Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic bar
>>in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can just read
>>the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the door.
>>
>>"STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "Thanks For
>>Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."

>What, exactly, does Verizon have to do with accepting credit cards?
>It's not like Verizon is the only way to get an Internet connection in
>lower Manhattan, particularly for something as low-bandwidth as
>credit-card transaction processing. (Hell, Verizon's own wireless
>joint venture can probably provide sufficient network for that.)

Many credit card readers/validation boxes tied to registers still
use phone lines to callup and validate things. My favorite lunch
place is such a thing, and they have to wait sometimes until their
one phone line clears up to charge cc's as the customers line up.

Yes, there are many other solutions. But the tech is old, and unless
they are willing to think beyond what they currently have, they most
likely just sit and grumble. (probably the impetus of lack of change
is the only reason the ILECs still have 80% of their business as it is. :)

[Wes Leatherock]

--- On Sat, 3/2/13, Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:

> In article <20130302223...@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,
> Bill Horne <bi...@horneQRM.net> wrote:
>> Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic
>> bar in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can
>> just read the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the
>> door.
>>
>> "STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "Thanks
>> For Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."
>
> What, exactly, does Verizon have to do with accepting credit cards?
> It's not like Verizon is the only way to get an Internet connection
> in lower Manhattan, particularly for something as low-bandwidth as
> credit-card transaction processing. (Hell, Verizon's own wireless
> joint venture can probably provide sufficient network for that.)

Many places do not know how to take credit cards when the power is
off, or when they can not get them authorized because their machine
won't access the service center when the power is off somewhere else.
The same thing would seem to apply when communications service was
interrupted.

We were once in a restaurant in Dallas when the power went off: the
cause later shown on TV was that a car hit a pole a couple of blocks
south of the restaurant, which was visible from the restaurant parking
lot.

We were trying to check out, and the server said they "couldn't" take
credit cards with the power off. I offered to write a check, but the
manager said it was against company policy, and finally decided to
comp the charge.

Seemed to us it would make more sense to take the check and maybe get
some money vs. making sure you would get no money.

Another time we were in a restaurant in Oklahoma City where the staff
was pretty tired - they had spent all morning inputting the charges
they had from the night before when the power was off.

Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com

[T]

In article <kgu1p3$5q2$1...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
wol...@bimajority.org says...

>
> In article <20130302223...@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,
> Bill Horne <bi...@horneQRM.net> wrote:
>
> >Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic bar
> >in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can just read
> >the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the door.
> >
> >"STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "Thanks For
> >Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."
>
> What, exactly, does Verizon have to do with accepting credit cards?
> It's not like Verizon is the only way to get an Internet connection in
> lower Manhattan, particularly for something as low-bandwidth as
> credit-card transaction processing. (Hell, Verizon's own wireless
> joint venture can probably provide sufficient network for that.)

Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
line. Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage like
that wouldn't impact me.

But a lot of businesses run either stand alone terminals or integrated
POS solutions that depend on wireline communication, be it POTS or
over the net. Without both you're up the creek without a paddle.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <MPG.2b9db3a45...@news.eternal-september.org>,

T <kd1s....@cox.nospam.net> wrote:

>Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
>line. Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage like
>that wouldn't impact me.

I haven't seen one of those in a really long time. All the ones I've
seen lately are IP, not POTS. I assume (hope!) they have some sort of
integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's network.

[David Scheidt]

Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
:In article <MPG.2b9db3a45...@news.eternal-september.org>,

:T <kd1s....@cox.nospam.net> wrote:

:>Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
:>line. Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage like
:>that wouldn't impact me.

:I haven't seen one of those in a really long time. All the ones I've
:seen lately are IP, not POTS. I assume (hope!) they have some sort of
:integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's network.

Lots of pots terminals around. Plenty of places with no IP
connectivity need to accept credit cards.

I do wonder, though, how much of the non-rush to fix the ability to
accept cards is because they don't really want to take them. For a
lot of businesses, the cost of credit cards is much higher than the
cost of cash. Taking cards is worthwhile for them in goodwill, or
because they're likely to lose sales. Sandy gives them an excuse to
blame...

--
sig 44

[Mark Smith]

Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <MPG.2b9db3a45...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> T <kd1s....@cox.nospam.net> wrote:

>> Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
>> line. Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage
>> like that wouldn't impact me.

> I haven't seen one of those in a really long time. All the ones
> I've seen lately are IP, not POTS. I assume (hope!) they have some
> sort of integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's
> network.

In the boonies of Southern Maryland, one restaurant still has the credit card
machine attached to the voice (POTS) line. If anyone is gabbing one the phone
the machine won't work.

Mark L. Smith
markl...@yahoo.com
http://smith.freehosting.net
Http://marksfolkmusicphotos.shutterfly.com

[Doug McIntyre]

wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) writes:
>I haven't seen one of those in a really long time. All the ones I've
>seen lately are IP, not POTS. I assume (hope!) they have some sort of
>integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's network.

PCI/DSS requires the PAN data to be transmitted over encrypted
networking when over any sort of WAN or wifi what-so-ever. So, it
almost certainly is. Although SSL encryption is good enough to comply
with this requirement for a gateway processor to get the OK on a
charge.

Its the large retailers that do bonehead things that worry me (ie. TJ
Max storing all credit card swipes in their database in the clear for
years and years with zero reason for this at all).

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17871485/

[Wes Leatherock]

--- On Mon, 3/4/13, Mark Smith <markl...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> In the boonies of Southern Maryland, one restaurant still has the
> credit card machine attached to the voice (POTS) line. If anyone is
> gabbing one the phone the machine won't work.

It's not just in the boonies. Lots of small businesses don't want
to pay for an extra phone line of any sort. This happens im doctors'
offices and some small retail stores, too.

Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com

[danny burstein]

In <1362497462.10013...@web125202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Wes Leatherock <wlea...@yahoo.com> writes:

> It's not just in the boonies. Lots of small businesses don't want
>to pay for an extra phone line of any sort. This happens im doctors'
>offices and some small retail stores, too.

Many of those places also have a fax machine. I've saved a bunch of
them money by explaining they can hook up their credit card
dialer-outer onto the fax machine phone line (which, for most of them,
is minimally used).