Patent ID: 7890432

Claim:
A method for establishing communications with a postage meter comprising: identifying a plurality of networks concurrently connected to a postal infrastructure data center and usable by the postal infrastructure data center to communicate with postage meters, each of the plurality of networks being of a different network type, each network having a plurality of postage meters connected to the network; selecting, by the postal infrastructure data center, at least one of the plurality of networks based on a selection criterion applied to each of the plurality of networks; establishing an active connection to the selected at least one network; subsequent to establishing the connection to the selected at least one network, polling the plurality of meters to identify at least one of the plurality of meters connected to the selected at least one network to be serviced by the data center; subsequent to identifying the at least one meter, establishing a first connection to the at least one meter for an exchange of data between the postal infrastructure data center and the at least one meter, the first connection being established at the initiation of a postal infrastructure data center; and subsequent to establishing the first connection to the at least one meter, servicing the at least one meter by the data center.