3G & 4G LTE: The Perfect Broadband Solution for Machine-to-Machine Transactions
Businesses increasingly process transactions, including sales, with computers instead of with old-fashioned pen, paper, and cash. These machine-to-machine transactions and executions include mobile point of sales, Oil rig monitoring, smart vending machines, smart safe, digital signage, fail-over, portable kiosk and automatic teller machines, including online sales and mobile wallets do improve business efficiency.
Unfortunately, machine-to-machine transactions depend on a reliable internet connection to function. In rural areas, where many internet connections are not available or not reliable, businesses often struggle to make sales online or, especially, to accept payment from mobile wallets. If machine-to-machine transactions malfunction because the internet connection is too weak, new technologies can actually seem less efficient than old-fashioned solutions.
Internet technology is penetrating a wide range of markets – from portable kiosks to vending machines to oil rig monitoring – which makes many rural businesses excited to adopt machine-to-machine transactions in their own establishments. One popular form of transaction, digital wallet, makes sales between a business and a customer faster and easier. The term “digital wallet” includes payment technologies that allow individuals to make Payments without using a credit/debit card or traditional money transfer.
Many money services offer digital wallets including big players PayPal (Wallet), MasterCard (MasterPass), Visa (V.me), QIWI Wallet, and Allied Wallet.
Digital wallets basically allow users to pre-register credit, debit, gift, and loyalty cards so that they can efficiently make payments from a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet. Digital wallets combine the convenience of paying with cash with the ease and security of paying with a card (no messy change to sort out, no chance of losing paper money or having it stolen).
So far, consumers don’t expect to be able to pay with a mobile wallet. Studies, for example, link credit cards to increased spending on impulse buys and tips [1], but there are no comprehensive studies linking mobile wallets to increased in-store spending.
If your business is involved in e-commerce, however, it absolutely makes sense to accept mobile wallets.
According to the company’s own research, accepting PayPal increases sales. Displaying the PayPal logo on various pages of your website increases the number of conversions by almost 3.5% [2].
If, as a rural business, you want to offer your customers the option to pay by digital wallet or, alternatively, want to expand your business into e-commerce, establishing a reliable mobile broadband connection at your business takes the headache out of these new technologies.
With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) which will heavily enable devices in industries such as agriculture and livestock, medicine, sports, entertainment, big data, engineering, oil exploration and robotics to strive exceedingly well.
Mobile broadband connections are fast and, where there is reliable coverage. The next generation of wireless broadband (5G) which promises to connect billions of devices simultaneously worldwide will likely go live in the year 2020.
Check the mobile broadband coverage in your area using the National Broadband Map [3]. The two networks available today are:
3G Mobile Broadband (available from carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint) Download speed: 1-4 Mbps Upload speed: 1 Mbps Latency: 75-100 ms Cost: $50-$60/10GB/month
4G LTE Mobile Broadband (usually only the Verizon 4G LTE network covers rural areas) Download speed: 5-12 Mbps Upload speed: 2-5 Mbps Latency: 75-100 ms Cost: $50-$60/10GB/month
Call us at EvdodepotUSA to find the best internet package for your online needs 1-866-439-6630.
Source: [1] Cash Isn’t Always King: Accepting Credit Cards Can Increase Your Business. Available at: http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/07/accepting-credit-cards-increase-business.html [2] 5 steps that can boost conversions by over 3%. Available at: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/business-updates/checkout-optimisation [3] National Broadband Map. Available at: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/
