Contacting remote server and testing with ACR880 gprs card reader

Question

I know this is not a proper way to ask on stackoverflow but please try to understand me.Thanks.

Ok...i have orderd for an ACR880 card reader that supports GPRS as advised by the ACR company for use in my desired application to contact a remote server in places where there's no internet access(Any suggestions for a better card reader is welcome)

So my worry is; will i be able to test this reader with a my local server to develop my back-end services to be accessed by the card reader through GPRS or i will require something like a sandbox hosted by the telecom company/network carrier.

Please correct me where am wrong and any advice or recommendations on what i need to know is welcome...Thank please.

Answer 1

Basically this is an ARM-based embedded Linux system. So regarding the hardware you are pretty much covered. What is at least as important is what kind of software and connections options are delivered with it. Unfortunately the data sheets do not specify what software this multi-function card reader comes with.

GPRS is a data connection protocol which supports the internet protocol (and thus TCP/IP and possibly HTTP(S)). So for the data transport you can use any normal internet connection. You should however make sure that your applications can handle intermittent transmission errors or lost transmissions. This is something your application should gracefully handle anyway, but the chances of encountering problems is obviously higher.

I don't see why you need a sandbox, but you should contact ACR to make sure you can develop your particular application. You may need a development toolkit.