Patent ID: 7020680

Claim:
A remote data acquisition and transmission system for beverage dispensing equipment, comprising: first and second application controllers, the first application controller interfacing with a first beverage dispensing device to acquire operation data from the first beverage dispensing device, and the second application controller interfacing with a second beverage dispensing device to acquire operation data from the second beverage dispensing device; an application host communicating with at least one of the first and second application controllers via a local area network (LAN) to receive the operation data from the first and second beverage dispensing devices; a wide area network (WAN) interface in the application host for communicating with a network operations center; the first and second application controllers and the application host operable to autoconfigure the local area network; a first transceiver in the first application controller that transmits the operation data from the first beverage dispensing device to the second beverage dispensing device; a second transceiver in the second application controller that receives the operation data from the first beverage dispensing device and relays the operation data from the first beverage dispensing device to the application host on behalf of the first application controller, wherein the second transceiver also transmits the operation data from the second beverage dispensing device to the application host; the network operations center communicating with the application host via the WAN to receive the operation data acquired by the first and second application controllers; and the network operations center transmitting data for the first and second beverage dispensing devices via the WAN to the application host, the application host transmitting the data to at least one of the first and second application controllers via the LAN, and the first and second application controllers providing the data to the first and second beverage dispensing devices, respectively.