Chip card telephone with monitoring unit

• Main Author: HAVLIK, JIRI, PRAG/PRAHA, CZ
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; German
• Published: 07.05.1997
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: ARRANGEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS FOR CHECKING NOT PROVIDEDFOR ELSEWHERE; CALCULATING; CHECKING-DEVICES; COIN-FREED OR LIKE APPARATUS; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; GENERATING RANDOM NUMBERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; REGISTERING OR INDICATING THE WORKING OF MACHINES; TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION; TIME OR ATTENDANCE REGISTERS; VOTING OR LOTTERY APPARATUS

A charge card or 'phone card telephone has, in its housing, a contact unit with several contacts for making contact with the chip contact surfaces. Integrated into the contact unit is a so-called ''card-in'' switch that signals when a card has been inserted. For communication with the card, there is an electronic control unit connected with the contact unit. Between the electronic control unit and contact unit, is a monitoring unit. It is a separate unit, designed to check the authenticity of a card by means of the signals from the card. It allows communication when the card is genuine and it gives an error signal to the control unit when it is not genuine. The monitoring unit has a microprocessor circuit with a test routine to control the card and analyse the chip card signals. It is downloaded with further updates for new types of counterfeit cards.