Telecom & Payments
Glossary

The financial institution that processes credit and debit card transactions on behalf of a merchant. When a customer pays by card, the acquiring bank routes the transaction, receives funds from the card network, and deposits them into the merchant's account minus fees.

A small fee charged by the card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) on each transaction, separate from interchange. Assessment fees are non-negotiable and pass directly to the network. They are typically a fraction of a percent of the transaction amount.

The real-time approval of a card transaction by the issuing bank. Authorization confirms the card is valid and the account has sufficient funds or credit. An authorized transaction is not yet settled — settlement occurs later, typically in a daily batch.

The maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over a connection in a given time period, measured in Mbps or Gbps. Higher bandwidth means more data can flow simultaneously — critical for businesses with many users, video calls, or cloud-dependent workflows.

The daily process of submitting a group of authorized transactions to the processor for payment. Most merchants batch-close at end of day. Funds from the batch are deposited to the merchant's account after the processor's funding schedule (next-day or 2–3 business days).

A connection that can temporarily exceed its committed rate when capacity is available. Common with cable and shared-fiber services. Useful for businesses with variable demand, but not a substitute for a dedicated circuit where consistent throughput is required.

A transaction where the physical card is not presented at the terminal — includes online orders, phone orders, and manual card entry. CNP transactions carry higher fraud risk and are charged at higher interchange rates than card-present transactions.

A transaction where the customer's physical card is used at the terminal — tap, chip insert, or swipe. Card-present transactions are lower risk than card-not-present and qualify for lower interchange rates.

A pricing structure where the listed price is the "cash price." Customers paying by card see a small disclosed service fee at checkout. When implemented compliantly — with required signage, terminal configuration, and state-law review — the program can significantly reduce a merchant's effective processing cost.

Contact Center as a Service — cloud-delivered contact center software replacing on-premise ACD hardware. CCaaS platforms (Genesys, Five9, NICE CXone) provide omnichannel routing, IVR, workforce management, and analytics through a subscription model.

A reversal of a card transaction initiated by the customer's issuing bank, typically due to dispute, fraud, or non-delivery. Chargebacks result in the transaction amount being debited from the merchant's account plus a chargeback fee. Excessive chargeback ratios can lead to merchant account termination.

Internet service delivered over cable TV infrastructure using the DOCSIS standard. Shared among neighboring subscribers, resulting in variable speeds during peak hours. Download speeds can be fast; upload is typically asymmetric. Not suitable for businesses requiring symmetric or SLA-guaranteed bandwidth.

Hosting your company's servers in a third-party data center rather than on-premise. The data center provides power, cooling, physical security, and network connectivity. Your company retains ownership and management of the equipment.

The guaranteed minimum bandwidth on a dedicated circuit. A 100Mbps DIA circuit with a 100Mbps CIR means the full 100Mbps is reserved for your business at all times — unlike burstable connections that only guarantee a lower floor.

Card and mobile payments made by tapping a card or device near an NFC-enabled terminal rather than inserting a chip or swiping. Contactless payments include tap-to-pay credit/debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. All payment terminals in Fibi's hardware lineup support contactless payments. Transactions process in under a second and are equally secure to chip insert via tokenization.

Communications Platform as a Service — cloud infrastructure that lets businesses embed voice, SMS, and video capabilities into their own applications via APIs. Twilio and Vonage are common examples. Unlike UCaaS (which replaces office communications), CPaaS enables custom communication workflows in software.

A secondary screen on a POS terminal or system that faces the customer during checkout — showing the transaction total, itemized order, price confirmation, and payment prompts. Customer-facing displays improve transparency in dual pricing and cash discount programs by showing both prices before payment. Models with customer-facing displays include Clover Station Duo, Valor VL300, Dejavoo iPOSgo, and Curv POS bundles.

Installed fiber optic cable that has no active electronics — the fiber itself is "dark" (no light signal passing through it). Businesses or carriers can lease dark fiber and run their own equipment to create private, high-capacity networks without relying on a carrier's managed service.

A private, unshared fiber circuit that provides a business with its full contracted bandwidth at all times, backed by a formal SLA. DIA offers symmetric upload and download speeds, guaranteed uptime (typically 99.99%), and a committed repair time. The premium alternative to shared-infrastructure cable or DSL.

Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification — the standard that governs how cable internet works over coaxial infrastructure. DOCSIS 3.1 supports gigabit download speeds but is still a shared-medium technology. DOCSIS 4.0 improves upstream capacity and is being deployed by major cable operators.

A payment program that displays two prices at the point of sale simultaneously: a cash price and a card price. The customer sees both options before selecting a payment method — no fee is added at checkout. "True Dual Pricing" refers specifically to programs where both prices are shown on the terminal or POS screen before payment, as opposed to a Cash Discount Program where a fee is disclosed at checkout. Terminal configuration, signage requirements, and state-law compliance apply.

The contractual penalty for canceling a service agreement before its end date. ETFs are typically calculated as the remaining monthly charges through end of term. Negotiating a capped or waived ETF is one of the highest-value contract terms to push on when signing.

Europay, Mastercard, and Visa — the global standard for chip-based card payments. EMV cards generate a unique cryptographic code for each transaction, making them far more secure than magnetic stripe cards. Merchants who accept chip-capable cards at a swipe-only terminal bear liability for resulting fraud.

Automatic rerouting of network traffic to a backup connection when the primary circuit fails. A properly configured failover is transparent to end users. Best practice: primary and backup should use different physical infrastructure (e.g., fiber primary + LTE backup) to avoid shared-path failures.

Ethernet-grade internet service delivered over fiber optic infrastructure. Fiber Ethernet typically offers symmetric speeds, low latency, and SLA-grade reliability. Available in dedicated (DIA) and shared varieties — dedicated Fiber Ethernet is the gold standard for business connectivity.

A pricing model where the processor charges a single blended percentage (and sometimes a per-transaction fee) on all card transactions regardless of card type. Examples: Square at 2.6% + 15¢, Stripe at 2.7% + 5¢. Simple to understand but typically costs more than interchange-plus for businesses with significant card volume.

The fee paid to the card-issuing bank on every transaction. Interchange rates are set by the card networks (Visa, Mastercard) and vary by card type, business type (MCC), and transaction method. Interchange is the largest component of card processing cost and the rate that interchange-plus pricing passes through transparently.

A transparent pricing model where the merchant pays the actual interchange cost set by the card network plus a fixed markup from the processor. More complex to read on statements than flat rate, but typically cheaper for established businesses — the merchant sees exactly what the processor earns.

The financial institution that issued the customer's credit or debit card. The issuing bank receives the interchange fee on each transaction. When a customer disputes a charge, the issuing bank initiates the chargeback process on their behalf.

A screen mounted in a restaurant kitchen that displays incoming orders in real-time, replacing paper ticket printers. A KDS shows order details, modifiers, priority, and timing — allowing kitchen staff to manage workflow without chasing paper. Native KDS integration is included in the Curv POS Restaurant Bundle. Clover supports KDS via app integrations. A KDS is most impactful in full-service restaurants, fast-casual operations, and any kitchen with multiple stations or high ticket volume.

The delay between sending a data packet and receiving a response, measured in milliseconds (ms). Low latency is critical for VoIP calls, video conferencing, and real-time applications. Fiber and dedicated circuits typically offer 5–20ms latency; satellite and LTE can be 50–600ms.

A backup internet connection that automatically activates over 4G/5G cellular when a primary wired internet connection (fiber, cable) fails. LTE failover is critical for businesses where POS or payment processing downtime has direct revenue impact — including restaurants, retail, and service businesses. The failover switch is transparent to end users and typically occurs within seconds. Some payment terminals (Pax A920, Dejavoo QD4) include LTE natively, so they continue operating even when the location's fixed internet is down.

A four-digit code assigned to a business by its acquiring bank that classifies its industry type. MCCs affect interchange rates — some categories (healthcare, utilities) qualify for reduced rates while others (airlines, jewelry) carry higher rates. MCC also determines eligibility for certain payment programs.

A specialized bank account that allows a business to accept card payments. The acquiring bank holds transaction funds temporarily before they are transferred to the business's regular bank account. Merchant accounts require underwriting and are subject to monthly volume limits.

Multiprotocol Label Switching — a carrier-managed private WAN technology that routes enterprise traffic off the public internet using dedicated labeled paths. Historically the enterprise WAN standard: predictable performance, strong SLAs, but expensive, slow to provision, and poorly suited to cloud-first architectures. Increasingly replaced by SD-WAN.

The contractual commitment from a carrier for how quickly they will restore service after an outage. A 4-hour MTTR is standard for enterprise DIA circuits; cable business internet SLAs often carry 24–48 hour MTTR. MTTR is one of the most important SLA terms for businesses where downtime has significant cost.

A settlement schedule where card transaction proceeds are deposited into the merchant's bank account the next business day after batch close. Standard platforms (Square, Stripe) often take 2–3 days. Next-day funding improves cash flow and is available through most direct merchant account programs.

Short-range wireless technology that enables contactless card payments and mobile wallet transactions (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay). NFC-capable terminals accept tap-to-pay cards and smartphones within a few centimeters. EMV chip and NFC are now standard on all modern payment terminals.

A carrier's 24/7 monitoring and management facility for its network infrastructure. When escalating a service outage or SLA breach, reaching the NOC directly (rather than tier-1 support) is typically faster. Enterprise contracts often include direct NOC contact information.

On-premise telephone switching hardware that manages internal and external calls for a business. Traditional PBX systems are being rapidly replaced by cloud-based UCaaS and hosted VoIP platforms, which eliminate hardware costs and enable remote work without additional infrastructure.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard — a set of security requirements for any organization that processes, stores, or transmits cardholder data. Merchants are required to comply annually. Non-compliance can result in fines and increased processing rates. PCI scope is minimized when using hosted payment terminals that handle card data separately from business systems.

Passive Optical Network / Gigabit Passive Optical Network — a fiber delivery architecture where a single optical fiber is split and shared among multiple endpoints using passive splitters. GPON delivers up to 2.5Gbps downstream shared across the network. Common in residential and some business fiber services.

The hardware and software system where a payment transaction occurs. A full POS system includes a terminal, display, receipt printer, cash drawer, and business management software covering inventory, employee management, reporting, and customer data. Modern POS systems integrate payment processing directly. The category spans mobile terminals (Pax A920, Dejavoo QD4), smart terminals (Valor VL110/VL300), and full POS platforms (Clover Station, Curv POS).

Router and switch configuration that prioritizes certain types of network traffic over others. QoS is critical for businesses running VoIP, video conferencing, and cloud applications over the same connection as general internet traffic — without it, a large file download can degrade call quality.

Having multiple independent network paths so that no single failure causes a complete outage. True redundancy requires different physical infrastructure for primary and backup circuits — two services from the same carrier on the same physical fiber route are not genuinely redundant. SD-WAN simplifies multi-circuit redundancy management.

An architecture that converges SD-WAN networking with cloud-native security services — including firewall-as-a-service, zero trust network access (ZTNA), CASB, and SWG — delivered from a vendor's global cloud. SASE eliminates the need to route all traffic through a central data center for security inspection.

Software-Defined Wide Area Network — technology that uses software to intelligently route enterprise traffic across multiple internet connections (fiber, cable, LTE). SD-WAN dynamically selects the best path per application, improves cloud performance, and typically replaces costly MPLS at 30–60% lower cost.

Internet-based phone line replacement that delivers voice calls over an IP network instead of traditional copper PSTN circuits. SIP trunks connect an on-premise PBX or UCaaS system to the public telephone network. Significantly cheaper than ISDN/PRI lines and support any call volume without ordering additional physical lines.

The contractual uptime, latency, jitter, and repair-time commitments a carrier makes to a business customer. A well-written SLA includes: uptime percentage (target 99.99% for critical sites), MTTR (target 4 hours), and meaningful financial remedies (credits, not just acknowledgment) when the carrier fails to meet its commitments.

A modern Android-based payment terminal that goes beyond simple card acceptance — running apps, supporting configurable payment programs (cash discount, dual pricing), NFC contactless, and sometimes customer-facing displays. Smart terminals sit between basic payment terminals and full POS systems: more capable than a countertop reader, less complex than a full POS platform. Examples include Valor VL110, Valor VL300, Dejavoo QD4, and Dejavoo iPOSgo.

A fee added on top of the listed price specifically for card payment — the opposite structure from a Cash Discount Program. Surcharges are prohibited in some US states and have stricter card network rules than cash discount programs. Structuring a program incorrectly as a surcharge when it should be a cash discount is a common compliance error.

Equal upload and download speeds on a connection. Symmetric service (e.g., 500Mbps/500Mbps) is standard on dedicated fiber circuits and essential for businesses with heavy upload demands: video conferencing, cloud backups, VoIP, and hosted server applications. Cable and DSL are asymmetric, with upload speeds significantly lower than download.

Hardware device that accepts card payments at the point of sale. Modern terminals support EMV chip, NFC contactless, and magnetic stripe. Advanced terminals run on Android and include touchscreens, receipt printers, and support for payment programs like Cash Discount. Free terminal placement is available for qualifying merchant accounts.

A processor pricing model that groups card transactions into tiers (qualified, mid-qualified, non-qualified) and charges different rates for each. Tiered pricing is generally opaque — processors control which tier each card falls into, making it difficult to audit. Most advisors recommend interchange-plus over tiered pricing for transparency.

Unified Communications as a Service — cloud-delivered platform combining voice, video, messaging, and collaboration in a single subscription. UCaaS (RingCentral, Nextiva, Zoom Phone) replaces traditional PBX hardware, eliminates per-seat maintenance, and supports remote workers without additional infrastructure.

The percentage of time a network service is operational, expressed annually. 99.9% uptime = ~8.8 hours of downtime/year. 99.99% = ~52 minutes. 99.999% = ~5 minutes. Enterprise DIA circuits typically carry 99.99% SLAs. Cable business internet may offer 99.9% or carry no formal uptime commitment.

Voice over Internet Protocol — technology that transmits phone calls as data packets over an IP network rather than traditional copper circuits. All modern cloud phone systems and UCaaS platforms are built on VoIP. Call quality depends on network latency, jitter, and packet loss — all of which should be addressed before migration.

A network that spans multiple physical locations — offices, data centers, or remote users. A WAN connects geographically distributed sites into a single network. Technologies used to build WANs include MPLS, SD-WAN, site-to-site VPN, and dedicated point-to-point circuits.

A security model that grants access to applications based on user identity, device posture, and context — rather than network location. Unlike VPNs (which give broad network access once connected), ZTNA enforces least-privilege access per application. A core component of SASE architectures.