Although 4G networks are the new standard across the country (with 5G close behind) many merchants still rely on 3G cellular connection to accept payments on their point of sale terminals. In the past, 3G has been more than capable of handling the small amount of data transferred to complete a transaction.
However, both Verizon and AT&T have announced they will be retiring the technology by the end of 2020 and early 2021, respectively.
While this may sound like merchants have plenty of time to upgrade their credit card machines, that isn’t actually the case. This retirement will be rolling, meaning existing 3G towers will not be fixed, upgraded or supported. A likely outcome of this is a merchant seeing full service on a 4G enabled cell phone, but their 3G terminal unable to connect to the internet.
To continue accepting credit and debit payments, avoid outages, and ensure your business has the best support available, Cloud Point of Sale encourages merchants to upgrade to a 4G terminal.
Many Cloud POS customers are currently using a Pax S90 CDMA (Verizon) or a Pax S90 GPRS (AT&T). We have begun transitioning them to the Pax S920, a touchscreen device that supports both AT&T and Verizon 4G sim cards. The S920 features also include EMV chip, swipe, keyed entry, EBT, SNAP and NFC (Apple Pay, Android Pay, etc.)
This fully loaded terminal is available for purchase on the Cloud POS store, as well as short or long term rental. The price you see online also includes the wireless fee.
For more information, visit theposcloud.com, email info@theposcloud.com, or call 888-773-1222 to speak with a POS expert.