Sales Tools
Belgian Banking Association Grows Modem Pools
| Background A major Belgian banking association operates a large credit card authorization network for its member banks. The network consists of thousands of Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sales (EFTPOS) terminals installed at gas stations and convenience stores that handle frequent short credit card authorization transactions of between 50 and 100 characters in length. To access the credit card authorization database housed on the association's Tandem host computer, each EFTPOS terminal uses a built-in 2400 kbit/s V.22bis modem and an analog phone line. For security purposes, the terminal also encrypts the data traveling across the phone line. At the banking association's computer center hundreds of modems and several terminal servers attached to the Tandem host are set up to answer calls from the EFTPOS terminals. |
Application
Current Approach The Need |
Belgian Banking Association - Previous Network
The Solution
Looking towards the future, the banking association has started making plans to switch from analog to ISDN point of sale terminals – a move that will drop the time it takes to authorize a credit card from between 10 and 15 seconds to just 1 or 2 seconds. Speedier credit card authorizations will mean more business for merchants and less delay for gas station and convenience store patrons.
In order to make the transition from analog to digital a smooth one, the banking association was seeking a central site solution that let them install new ISDN terminals while still maintaining their existing analog terminals. To take advantage of their new hardware and richer applications software, they also wanted to migrate from an X.25 packet switching environment to a TCP/IP environment.
How it Works
The banking association decided to replace its analog modems and terminal servers with a digital modem solution based on the Ascend MAX. Digital modems support both modem and ISDN users, allowing the association to make a smooth migration from analog to ISDN EFTPOS terminals.
Three MAXs, each holding 60 digital modems, were initially installed in the associations computer center. To meet the unique needs of the association's application, support staff have configured the MAXs to automatically connect to the Tandem host over a Telnet session as soon as the point of sale terminal established its connection. To minimize connection time even further, all error correction handshakes were turned off. A special transparent Telnet mode was also added to the MAX so it could support encrypted data sent by the EFTPOS terminal.
| Since the Tandem credit
card authorization application is not yet TCP/IP
compatible, a protocol converter was installed to convert
incoming calls from TCP/IP to X.25. Installing MAXs
provides flexibility to support legacy protocols such as
X.25 and provides a migration path to TCP/IP. Once the MAXs were up-and-running, the banking association was free to install its new ISDN EFTPOS terminals. Calls from both the analog and the ISDN terminals are now handled by the MAXs on a call-by-call basis. The initial deployment of nearly 100 digital modem ports was so successful that it was quickly expanded to over 500. At the same time, the bank association has been able to decommission all of its terminals servers, modems racks and hundreds of modems that were difficult to manage and maintain. They have also replaced hundreds of analog phone lines with just a handful of ISDN PRI circuits. |
Ascend Equipment The Benefits |
Belgian Banking Association - Ascend Solution
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