T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Top Up Vending Overview

WHAT IS TOP UP VENDING?

Top up is a facility for adding pre-paid minutes directly to a customers cell phone account. It is very convenient for the user because no complicated dialing sequences or PIN numbers are required to complete the transaction. The Top Up Vending system from Technik Manufacturing enables the customer to purchase top up minutes from a self-service vending machine. The machine provides a way for the customer to select the cell phone company, number of minutes, and the cell phone account to receive the minutes. The machine accepts cash in payment for the sale.
HOW DOES IT WORK?

The vending machine uses the Internet to communicate with a central host system. The host records the details of each request and translates it into the format required by the selected cell phone company. The host communicates with the server at the cell company to perform the actual purchase. The host then returns the results of the transaction to the vending machine.

Although each airtime seller may use a different transaction protocol, communications between the vending machines and the host use a common protocol regardless of which companys product is to be purchased. By connecting with the appropriate port on the host the vending transaction will be translated and routed to the appropriate company. There are two transactions performed by the vending machine for each purchase: Check and Buy. The Check transaction is used to make sure that the purchase can be completed before money is accepted from the customer. The product and price to be purchased and the telephone number to be topped up are sent to the host. The host verifies that the telephone number is valid and that the requested product is available. The Buy transaction performs the actual purchase. A reference to a successful Check transaction is passed to the host. If the reference is valid the host contacts the phone company server to transfer the time to the customers account.
HOST COMPUTER RECOMENDATIONS

Operating System Processor Memory Disk storage Display resolution Ethernet port Database software

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Multi-core (4 recommended) Low wattage 4GB (2) Western Digital Black 640GB At least 1280 horizontal. More is better. 1 or more depending on network configuration Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Server Express (may reside on a local server)

Page 1

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

The Top Up Vending Machine

BUYING MINUTES FROM THE VENDING MACHINE

Purchasing cell phone time is quick and easy. On screen prompts guide the customer through three simple steps. 1. Select product. Press the button next to the carrier and number of minutes to be purchased.

2. Enter phone number.

The phone number is entered twice using the numeric keypad.

3. Insert Cash. The phone number and product have been checked and are valid. Inserting the correct amount of money into the bill acceptor completes the sale. Minutes are automatically added to the cell phone account.

A sales receipt is printed. It shows: The machine location. Sale date and time. The product name. The product price. The phone number. The transaction reference number. Other relevant information. If there are questions about the sale, the transaction number can be used to trace the sale through the host.

Page 2

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

USING SERVICE MODE

The vending machine has two operating modes: Vend mode and Service mode. These modes are selected by the position of the key switch on the lower right side of the machine. Turn the key switch clockwise to enter Service mode. Be sure to return the switch to the counter-clockwise position (Vend Mode) when finished. Service mode can be used to perform several functions using the display and numeric keypad. These functions include printing reports, testing the bill acceptor and keypad, and viewing or changing most machine settings. Some settings such as the product setup cannot be changed using the keypad. To access all machine settings use the Browser Interface.
When the key is turned to the Service mode position the first screen that appears is:

Press the 1 key to display the log in screen.

Enter the four-digit passcode and press enter. The main menu is displayed.

Each of these four options will be described below. 1) Service

This procedure is used to produce documentation and reset accounting when collecting money from the machine. When 1 is pressed a sales report will print for reconciling the amount of cash collected and the following screen will display:

Page 3

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Selecting OK resets all period counters to zero and prints a before and after sales report. 2) Reports

Press 1 to print the current sales report.

Page 4

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

3) Tests

The bill acceptor can be tested without adding credits to the machine or affecting the accounting information. The value of the bills is displayed as they are inserted. The keypad test can used to check that the buttons are working correctly. Keys pressed on the keypad will be shown on the display. The X key returns to the Tests menu. 4) Setup

Setup > Communications When Communications is selected the following screen is displayed. The first line is the machines IP address on the local network. Enter this address in to a web browsers address bar to access the machines browser interface.

Setup > Communications > Local Network

Option 1 toggles between DHCP and static addressing on the local network. In DHCP mode, the machines local network settings are retrieved automatically from a server on the network. A router or firewall typically performs DHCP server functions. In static mode, all network parameters must be explicitly set using option 2.

Page 5

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Setup > Communications > Host Settings

This menu selection displays a sequence of three screens for setting the host IP address, TCP port and call interval. Setup > Communications > Host Settings

This number is used to identify the vending machine to the host. It must be unique.

Page 6

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

THE BROWSER INTERFACE

The Top Up vending machine provides a web interface that allows setting machine parameters using a web browser such as Internet Explorer. This is the preferred method of setting up the machine since many important parameters can only be accessed in this way. Connecting to the browser interface The browser interface can be accessed by typing the IP address (or URL if one is assigned) into the address bar of a web browser. For a new installation the machine may be assigned a fixed IP address or the address can be obtained from a DHCP server. If a fixed address is not assigned and there is no DHCP server available, the machine will revert to the default address 10.111.110.11. The machines IP address can be viewed on the LCD display by accessing the Service Mode menu: Setup/Communications. For more information on the operator menus functions refer to the Using Service Mode section of this manual. Browser interface pages Home The home page displays the machines ID number and location name as well as the current date and time. Links are provided for navigation to the other pages.

Page 7

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Location Information
The Location page allows the Unit ID and location name to be set. The unit ID is a unique six-digit number that the host uses to identify a machine at a particular location. If a machine needs to be replaced the new machines ID should be set to the number used in the old machine. This will maintain continuity in host sales reporting. The location name appears on reports, receipts, and log information at the host. Each machine should have a unique location name.

Page 8

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Date & Time Page This page allows the machines clock to be set and the date display format to be selected. If Synchronize with server clock is selected, the machines time and date will be adjusted based on the hosts clock. The synchronization will occur the next time the machine contacts the host and each time thereafter. The Time zone correction field is used to set the machines time to an offset from UTC.

Page 9

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Network Settings Select local network settings.

Page 10

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Host Settings The address of the host computer can be set here. The host port and polling interval are used to access the administrative host channel. The default administrative host port is 7200. The polling interval sets how often the machine will report to the administrative host.

Page 11

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Vendor Settings A different program at the host services each airtime vendor. In order to connect to the correct host program the machine needs to know the port number that each one listens to. Enter the name and port number for each vendor. The name will appear on the display, sales receipt, and sales report.

Page 12

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Assign Buttons This Page maps products and prices to the buttons on the front of the machine. First select a vendor for each button from the drop down lists and click Save Changes. Next enter the price and description for each product. The description does not need to contain the vendor name as they are retrieved from the vendor list. The number of minutes might be a good choice.

Page 13

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

Top up Host Software

THE TOP UP HOST SYSTEM

Each cell phone carrier uses a different protocol for processing top up transactions. Instead of trying to support all the various protocols directly by the vending machine, a host computer is used as a proxy server to translate and route requests from the machines to the appropriate companys server. In addition to allowing standardized access by the vending machines, the host maintains records of all transactions. This provides centralized audit capabilities and aggregation of sales across all machines serviced by the host. A separate program runs on the host for each supported phone company. Requests from the vending machine are routed to the correct program by using a TCP port number assigned to that program. Each program listens for messages sent to that port on the host machines IP address. For the host system to be able to receive messages from the Internet, a fixed public IP address is needed. There are several ways that the host computer can be accessed from the Internet using the public IP address. The simplest but perhaps least secure is to directly expose the hosts Ethernet port by assigning it that address and connecting to the Internet gateway in pass through mode. Another would be to assign the address to a hardware firewall or router and use the devices port forwarding feature to route connections for the assigned ports to the hosts address on the local network. The Internet Service Provider can provide help with this. Several levels of protection are in place to insure communication over the public Internet remain secure. All packets are encrypted using a rolling salt algorithm and each connection is authenticated using a random challenge/response exchange to verify that a valid machine initiated the connection. Each transaction is assigned a unique reference number by the host to prevent man in the middle replay attacks. Connections between the host and the carriers servers will be established as required by the carrier. Typically this will be done over a VPN connection.

Page 14

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

THE HOST PROXY PROGRAMS

Each phone companys top up server is represented on the host system by a host proxy program. These programs perform the following functions. Accept requests from the vending machines. Translate request into the format required by the specific phone company. Connect with the phone companys server to perform the requested transaction. Transmit the transaction result to the vending machine.

These programs can service requests from many vending machines at once. The maximum number of simultaneous requests that each will accept can be configured by the user. Although the work performed by each host proxy varies based on the phone company it services, for the user each program looks and operates identically.

Hardware lock. Each vending machine is assigned an unique six digit identification number. The host keeps a record of which physical machine is using each ID number. If the host detects that a different machine is trying to use a previously assigned ID number, its request will be rejected. If a machine or a machines computer needs to be replaced, this security check can be temporarily overridden.

Once the new machine successfully connects, the lock can be turned back on. The new machine will be the new owner if the ID number.

Page 15

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

There are two types of requests that are serviced by the host proxy programs Check and Buy. Check This transaction is sent by the vending machine before accepting money from the customer. It confirms that the telephone number and product selection are valid. Ideally a successful Check should guarantee that a subsequent Buy request would be honored. The degree to which this is true depends on how well the phone company supports this function. Buy This transaction performs the actual transfer of minutes into the customers account. A Check transaction is required before a Buy request will be accepted. Closing a host proxy program. When exiting a host proxy the following window may display:

If there are recent Check transactions that have not yet had a matching Buy request the host proxy will delay shutting down for five minutes to allow those purchases to complete. New Check requests will not be accepted during this time. Clicking the Force Shutdown button will cause the program to exit immediately.
CLARO NUMBERS UPDATE PROGRAM

The Claro top up service provides no support for the Check function. In order to achieve a minimal degree of safety for Claro purchases, the Claro host proxy does a local lookup to see if the phone number is a valid Claro number. In order to do this a database of Claro phone numbers is maintained on the host system. This database needs to be updated periodically to keep it as accurate as possible. The database is built and updated with the Claro Numbers Update program. The program reads a text file supplied by Claro and stores the numbers in the file to the database. The process of building the database takes less than a minute. During this time some Claro check transactions may be rejected.

Page 16

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

THE HOST SETUP PROGRAMS

Each Host proxy program needs some basic information in order to function. The basic information is: The IP address and port number to connect to on the phone companys server (host network). The port number for accepting connections from the vending machines (local network). The starting number of threads and the thread limit. A word about threads: Each thread is a separate process that runs independently. It listens for a connection from a vending machine and services the machines request. Each thread can only handle one machine at a time. The starting number of threads is the number of listeners that will be running when the host proxy is first started. Whenever all running listeners are busy an additional thread will be started unless the thread limit has been reached. The thread limit is the maximum number of machines that can be handled by a given proxy at once. It should be set to value large enough to handle the maximum reasonable number of simultaneous requests (a typical request takes about 15 seconds to complete). It should not be set to high to limit the effect of denial of service attacks. In addition to these basic settings, each phone company will have values that must be set in order to access their system. These values are set using the host setup programs.

Page 17

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

THE LOG EXPLORER PROGRAM

A detailed record of all system activity is recorded. This record can be accessed to identify problems or to verify the results of a specific transaction.

Clicking the heading of any column will sort the list by that column. A specific transaction can be searched for by entering all or part of the time, reference number or phone number into the search box.

Double clicking on any transaction will display all the details of that transaction.

Page 18

T O P

U P

V E N D I N G

S Y S T E M

O V E R V I E W

THE SALES REPORT PROGRAM

The SalesReport program provides versatile reporting of sales. The report can be organized either by machine or by product. The time period that the report covers can be set to any range of dates. Report output can be directed to the screen, a printer, or exported to an Excel spreadsheet or PDF file.

Page 19