Broadband Wifi Growth In Latin America

"We expect wireless-enabled POS terminals to become more mainstream over the next several years, particularly when the solution is delivered with the right partners," said Bill Nichols, Verifone's marketing director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since emerging from the fringe "Free Network Movement" early in the new millennium, Wi-Fi wireless networking technology, also known as 802.11, has moved rapidly into the mainstream. The technology has gathered many adherents involved in one aspect or another of e-commerce, from network equipment suppliers and e-payment service providers to traditional online merchants.
With their ease of installation, low cost and high performance, wireless networks now are adding users and advocates in Latin America and other developing markets around the world.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the title of "world's first Wi-Fi-linked e-payments network" is claimed by The Mall of San Marino in Guayaquil, Ecuador. To create this network, which supports physical and online retail sales and management for the Mall's 250-plus merchants, U.S.-based e-payments equipment and services provider Verifone joined with wireless network equipment supplier D-Link's South American subsidiary and local payments processor MediaNet.

The Mall's Wi-Fi project team was able to eliminate merchants' multiple dial-up phone lines and Internet access points. Instead, the team limited the number of access lines to one or two per merchant site on average -- one primary and one backup -- by using IP-based Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet LANs to network Verifone's Omni3750 multimodal network access point-of-sale terminals within stores.
Not only did this cut merchants' long-distance phone charges, but the online wireless network and systems platform provided 24-7 availability. It also improved payment processing speeds and the transfer of data to merchants' management centers by up to 350 percent, or an average four seconds per transaction, according to project team participants.

"We expect wireless-enabled POS terminals to become more mainstream over the next several years, particularly when the solution is delivered with the right partners," said Bill Nichols, Verifone's marketing director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Linking the World

Further south, D-Link South America recently completed the first phase of a satellite-based wireless networking project that has, for the first time, brought affordable Internet access and telecommunications services to the small, isolated pueblo of Cora Cora in the south of Chile's Ayacucho province.

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