The reverse is more likely in the US. There's plenty of old legacy POS systems/registers, which have a card reader that's with it, attached or not. The only way I've ever seen a card run without a network (whether it be an existing network or an integrated modem and phone line), is when there's a power outage and someone busts out one of the old carbon copy manual card machines, where they take an impression of the card. Those may not even be accepted anymore, since they don't deal with CVV numbers and some cards don't even have embossed numbers anymore.
