My mate is opening a new shop. He needs to use a credit card machine provided by his bank, he calls is a PDQ machine. His bank tells him that he needs a dedicated line for this machine, but BT have told him that he can use one of his 'virtual' (VOIP) lines provided by his broadband router for this as it is cheaper for a VOIP line than a separate dedicated line.

I'm not so sure it will work? Does anyone know if it will?

Thanks for any help.

Dave.

i didnt think you could send data (such as a modem) over voip at the moment?

No that's what I thought, and I told him so, though he says someone at bt told him he could.

It depends on the provider as to whether or not it will accept fax/data transmissions.

It's a bit risky though if you ask me, I would rather have a dedicated PSTN line - that way, it doesn't rely on your ISP being up 100% of the time. Internet downtime would mean downtime for the business.

Typical BT Sales - it's also quite likely that the bank will kick up a fuss if the line isn't a normal PSTN line.

Yes, I can't work out why BT are telling him this. If he goes for it, he will not need his second line just for the credit card machine and so they will get less money from him.

It's prob the case of a CSR trying to be helpfull but not propperly knowing what their talking about.

Do the CSRs know anything?

Data transmission over a VOIP line is flakey at best.

There is a protocol specific to fax transmission (T38) but it's not widely supported yet . This is fax rather than general data though.

I did find a document at one point that had pointers on how to get relatively reliable data transmission over a VOIP line but to be honest as it's for something that important your mate really should get a dedicated line. PM me if you want the document and I'll put it on a web page. (It's written for a Sipura device if I remember rightly but should be applicable with tweaks to others).

Having VOIP installed for his general voice access may benefit him (many features over VOIP for cheap/free that cost extra cash on land lines) but I wouldn't use it for card payments.

A few do yeh, My ISP's are excellent but generaly nah they don't