Glossary

Consumers autonomously make purchase for utilities via a variety of purchase channels. Revenue from consumer purchases is collected by the company without any intervention from the Customer and is paid to the Customer

The Meter Type is a combination of Token Technology and Algorithm Type. The Meter Type uniquely defines how a token should be created to work in the meter. See Token Technology and Algorithm Type.

This is typically provided through the user interface (or the Meter Card) and is used to locate subsequent information on the Meter Database of the Server.

If the meter Exists on the Meter Database, then that information must be used. If the meter does not exist on the Database, the information supplied via the Meter Card or Manual Entry may be used.

The KMC is a secure trust centre that has been setup with Eskom to secure the STS master keys. The KMC also securely codes and distributes STS encoding modules

Two Tokens make up the generation of a Key Change Token. They are created to change the meter configuration namely the Tariff Index, Supply Group Code and Key Revision Number.

Gateway Vendor is one of the defined Vendor Types and describes how the Vendor equipment looks
The Gateway Vendor must set up his own Gateway to communicate to the Eskom Server via a permanent communication line. The Gateway Vendor will have only one Vendor Account and all Vend requests will be handled via this Gateway and account. Behind the Gateway, the Vendor may have many proprietary Vending Terminals of different capabilities but all of that is transparent to Eskom since the Terminals never communicate directly with the Eskom Server. This configuration is typically the way that EasyPay and the Banks would operate but note that it is also possible for a Regional Vendor or even an Area Vendor to be configured on the Server as a Gateway Vendor.

Typically Tokens or Transactions for the specific Engineering Functions as defined in STS. This includes “Set Power Limit”, “Clear Tamper”, “Clear Credit”, etc. See Vend Operation, Credit/Energy Token, FBE Token and Key Change Token.

A credit token updates the credit register of a prepaid meter. The value of the credit token is added to the current credit when the credit token is applied to the meter. The sum of the credit token value and the meters current credit is the resulting credit value.

The term “Auto Key Change” used to refer to a scenario where the Vending Machine automatically triggered the generation of a Key Change Token when the information on the Meter Database is different from the meter information on the Meter Card. It is recommended that the Online Vending System do not use Auto Key Change. Auto Key change is not ideal for a Client-Server scenario since that makes any subsequent vending operations dependant on a successful previous operations. Such transaction dependencies create several complex error scenarios that will have to be resolved or absorbed in the process.

The Online Vending Server will instead respond with an appropriate error message if it detects that a Key Change is required.