[asterisk-users] Credit Card processing machines

[Jeff LaCoursiere]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009, Jon Pounder wrote:

>> Yes -- our alarm monitoring company considers T1 -> * -> ATA -> Alarm 
>> to be so unreliable that they require you to sign a waiver 
>> (indemnifying them in the event of basically anything) if you hook it 
>> up this way. Because of that we kept a POTS line around to hook up the 
>> alarm system. It would be cheaper to hook the alarm panel up to an 
>> internal cell phone backup :). I assume there are manufacturers that 
>> offer a built-in cell modem...
>>
> lots of that cell modem stuff, but the latest trend is to have constant
> connectivity over the internet instead of a dedicated serial link over
> something like DVACS that can detect line cuts. A normal alarm is only
> connected when it has something to report unless its a higher end system
> connected all the time.
>
> on the credit card terminals internet connectivity is also becoming
> standard since many units can all share and don't need an aggregator or
> dedicated phone lines.
>

That is in fact the way they went for the remote stores, as we couldn't 
make it work reliably over the net back to their main office (this is in 
the Virgin Islands, where connectivity is expensive, slow, and unreliable 
at best).  But processors down there make you pay dearly for the right to 
do so.

We will be testing the ADT connection heavily this week.  The modem 
connections to my understanding are 2400 baud.  Over G.711U and a T1 I 
don't see why this wouldn't be as solid as a POTS line, but our tests will 
tell!

j