Digital vs. Analog Phone Lines and POS Terminals
derch
some expert advise. I own a small buisness that accepts credit and
debit cards. I have a Verifone POS terminal. I am also getting raped
by AT&T on the price of my phone/internet service. I would like to
shop for another carrier but I have this problem and confusion with my
POS terminal.
I was told to only use an analog line with my POS terminal. This is
limiting my options on carriers because vendors like Brighthouse say
they only offer digital lines. Is there anything that can be attached
to a digital line to convert it to analog?
Any help or insight on this issue would be greatly appreciated. No
matter who I talk to I get different answers. Unfortunately I am
locked into a lease on this POS terminal so it is either go through
alot of expense to buy out the machine to swap it out or find another
solution. Thanks all.
Horvath
<rricc...@cfl.rr.com> wrote this crap:
All phone lines that hook up to credit card verifyers must be analog.
The device that converts analog to digital is called a modem. It's
short for Modulation/demodulation device. Your credit card verifyer
has a modem built in, and needs an analog line.
I haven't heard of any carriers that carry only digital lines.
And vote for Palin-Arnold in 2012.
Hor...@Horvath.net
My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the
ultimate power in the universe."
Reed
The fact that these vendors do not know how to provide an analog
"POTS" port on their systems should tell you that they are not
business-oriented providers. They only know residential.
Ask them how they would provide service for a fax machine. POS and fax
use the same analog modem technology.
Worst case you may need to keep one POTS line from local telco for the
POS (also as backup should these Internet-based digital VOIP
implementations fail).
FYI, POTS = Plain Old Telephone Service
David Lesher
>I was told to only use an analog line with my POS terminal. This is
>limiting my options on carriers because vendors like Brighthouse say
>they only offer digital lines. Is there anything that can be attached
>to a digital line to convert it to analog?
Lots of hype, little truth....
The term 'analog' means different things at different places when
different questions are asked.
Long time ago, all phone connections were analog. Then Candice Bergen
introduced us to Sprint fiber optics long distance.
The most important aspect was it established ""digital"" as an
important marketing buzzword...where is remains today.
Then the telcos started making their inter-Central Office trunkage
digital as well. Well, they'd invented it in 1962, but....
But the last mile was still analog. (It still is, unless you have ISDN.)
That analog is called "POTS" .....
(Now, some business PBX's use their own special sets that are not
analog; the last hundred feet is digital. They use non-POTS voltages and
signaling, and in theory, plugging a POTS phone [or POS term] into such
a PBX can burn it out and let dark evil loose on the world, before the
first commercial. But I digress....)
So you could have a call that started analog in LA, went to the CO to be
digitized, went to Sprint, then to Chicago & Hooterville, where it was
turned into analog except you had a digital PBX from Wal_mart who made it
digital again to the set. Phew.
And both cable co's and now ATT & Verizontal offer schemes to make the
last mile BUT NOT THE LAST 100 feet ""digital""....
Out of this mess, what do you get?
a) While all kinds of the transmission, including sometimes the
connection to your house, is digital; what is important to you is:
They all present to you as POTS.
You plug a K-Mart phone, or a ZON Jr,
or whatever into a analog jack.
The voltages there are all ordinary POTS ones [1]. The exception is a
digital PBX. If you are asking questions here.... that's not you.
b) The repeated flip-flops back and forth to analog WILL impair some
modems; they can not connect as well. Your ZON Jr. has a modem.
BUT: it's the slowest possible one, because they connect fastest when
you dial, and when you are sending ~24 digits, period...Connect time far
exceeds data xfer time. And such slow modem traffic is usually
unaffected by the impairment. [Such is not necessarily true for fax,
which is a feaster modem.]
So go ahead and talk to Brighthouse. I've never found a cable company
really cheaper once you strip away the BS, but... I'd get them to install
it WITHOUT them grabbing your existing numbers, try it for 4 weeks, and
if it all works, then "LNP" you published numbers to the cable. If not,
cancel and keep your telco service.
1] There is one possible gotcha. Not all POTS-emulators supply the -48V
that Ma does. Some provide -24v. This is no problem as the voltage *IN
USE* drops to ~~3-14VDC anyhow.
Except that some "busy lights" on some phones are dumb and say "If I see
-48, it's idle, if less busy." when they SHOULD think "If I see less than
~15V, it's busy. The POS dialer MAY be set to wait until it see -48V so
as to share a fax line, etc. There is a programming adjustment for same.
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