Telephone modem to satellite data converter for mobile financial transactions

Abstract

The Telephone Moderm to Satellite Data Converter (TM/SD converter) allows for the replacement of a telephone line or cell phones for sending and receiving financial transaction data with a mobile satellite data system. The important feature offered by the TM/SD Converter is the ability to use common transaction equipment that is equipped with a telephone modem by interfacing them with a satellite transceiver. It replacements the telephone line in the data path of the transaction. This is important in rural and hard-to-get-to places where a telephone line is both expensive to run and unreliable. Using a worldwide satellite system like Iridium™, it allows secure and reliable transactions to geographical areas that previously could not access the necessary host data system because of none existent or high-cost telephone circuits. Being able to insert the TM/SD Converter into an existing situation where telephone circuits are presently used is important to it be a modular solution. It allows a merchant is a credit card machine with telephone modem to simply plug in the TM/SD Converter into an existing situation where a telephone line is not cost effective (i.e., at a remote site) or available (i.e., a new mobile unit) without having to convert any other equipment. The TM/SD also addresses the high cost of narrowband satellite data by using intelligent compression based on the type of data fields in the transaction. Security is added to the transaction standard synchronous encryption program (like DES) after the compression of the data and before its transmission. For some applications this may be unnecessary, for example, gathering whether data but other situations, for example, credit card transactions, it is desirable because we are now in a broadcast mode of sensitive data. It is important to note than telephone modem applications; even one using cellular do not bother to encrypt. Other types of transactions that could be sent are; security checks, vending information, or other short burst transaction sent over telephone circuits.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.