So our family business has been taking credit cards for 9 or 10 years - it's a mobile business, so we have always had to use a cell signal. The earlier machines

So our family business has been taking credit cards for 9 or 10 years - it's a mobile business, so we have always had to use a cell signal. The earlier machines were bulky and monstrously expensive, and so were the analog service plans for them. But now, data transfer is cheap, and card readers are as low as $400. I think it's also worth noting that, in that time, we've never had a problem with our card reader (the latest, we've had for about 4 years) but my ipod touch, which is a year old and sees far less punishment, has a broken home button.