why do so many gas stations and stores have a sat dish on roof?

DarkManX

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2000
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alot of stores, banks, gas stations, and schools have dishes on the roof and not the kind you get from Dish network, or DirecTV or PC these are usually white and sometimes really big, what are they for?
 

Cyberian

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2000
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Some chain stores/gas stations in the NYC Metro area use satellite transmission to link to their home office or a central database. It can be used for Credit Card verification, in store training, inventory control or price changes. I'm sure that there are uses that I have omitted or forgotten.
They have been in use for at least 5+ years that I know about, probably longer.
 

DarkManX

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2000
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but I thought 2 way sattelite communication didnt exist untill now...... for 2 way internet.
 

BooGoo

Member
Mar 3, 2001
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It's definately for credit card transactions. I worked for Exxon for a while monitoring these satellites.
 

TRUMPHENT

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2001
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<< but I thought 2 way sattelite communication didnt exist untill now...... for 2 way internet. >>



IBM was uplinking stores of all different kinds of chains for now decades. They still use all that extra bandwidth to watch you make monkey faces in mens room mirror.:D
 

hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
20,212
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a lot of places have those dishes, because the music that they get piped in is through that
 

Pacfanweb

Lifer
Jan 2, 2000
13,149
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<<but I thought 2 way sattelite communication didnt exist untill now...... for 2 way internet. >>

I don't think they are using the internet...I always thought the big companies had their own private systems.....Maybe not now, but in the past....someone feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

 
Feb 24, 2001
14,513
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my mother works for a gas station chain. they have direct feed cameras via sat. dishes that go straight to the corp. hq where she is. 500 and something stores that are recorded 24/7. the room is just a bunch of tv's where there are guys that monitor what's going on all day (watching the pumps for people driving off, robberies, clerks stealing).
 

N8Magic

Lifer
Dec 12, 2000
11,624
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The larger stores use these satellite dishes for their piped in music, as was stated before. For example, Taco Bell has their own music channel.

Credit card and check card transactions take place either over ISDN (small stores), phone line (REALLY small stores) or dedicated data circuits (medium/large stores).
 

Cyberian

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2000
9,999
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<<

<< but I thought 2 way sattelite communication didnt exist untill now...... for 2 way internet. >>



IBM was uplinking stores of all different kinds of chains for now decades. They still use all that extra bandwidth to watch you make monkey faces in mens room mirror.:D
>>


That's where I worked, at IBM. We took over the service for many of these installations from GE quite a while ago.