Roland Perry wrote:
at 13:24:29 on Tue, 28 Feb 2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:

Is the terminal the waiter brings to your table exchanging telemetry
wirelessly during the transaction, or does it have to be plugged into
a base station elsewhere in the restaurant? I assume it's wireless.

They are connected wirelessly (to a base within the retailer's
premises), Bluetooth apparently:

http://www.paymentsense.co.uk/card-p...ble-terminals/

Hm. I see they have versions that work with both local wireless networks
and mobile data networks.

Are they robust enough to be used where fare collection with a hand-
held device is warranted, if gawd forbid we talk about transport, or
would a more robust hand-held device be used on trains?

Outwardly similar devices are available (they don't use regular retail
handhelds communicating with a base station on the train):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avantix_Mobile

Right. I didn't think those were wireless devices.

I wasn't thinking about ticket-printing machines, per se, but getting
back to another discussion we had in which the credit card number itself is
used as the ticket medium and the passenger gets billed for all passage
at the end of the month.

I suppose the devices used in restaurants wouldn't survive being
dropped onto a hard surface outdoors.