NFC-based commerce network to go live in 18 months
In an unusual show of solidarity, wireless operators AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile have created a joint venture focused on mobile commerce.
Called Isis, the venture’s goal is to build a mobile payment network that uses near field communications (NFC) to let people pay for purchases at points of sale with their mobile phones instead of credit cards.
The network is expected to be available in “key geographic markets” in the next 18 months, according to the carriers’ joint press release. The venture is working with Discover Financial Services’ payment network to develop the infrastructure. Barclaycard US is expected to be the first issuer on the network.
NFC is a very-short-range, high frequency technology. You have to be within about 4 inches of the reader device with your smart phone to make your payment.
“[The short distance] helps makes it secure,” says Craig Ochikubo, VP and GM of wireless personal-area networks at chipmaker Broadcom, which acquired NFC company Innovision Research & Technology in June. Ochikubo says NFC “will be an emerging trend in 2011 for handsets.”
Indeed, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said last week that the upcoming Android 2.3 release (a.k.a. “Gingerbread”) will support NFC. In June, Nokia said that all its new 2011 handsets would support NFC. And in August, Apple hired an NFC expert as its mobile commerce product manager, fueling rumors that upcoming iPhones will also include the technology.
Finally, Juniper Research forecasts that one in every six mobile users worldwide will have an NFC-enabled phone by 2014, when it expects NFC to be a $633 billion market.
As elements of the POS infrastructure naturally get replaced, it makes sense for the new scanners to support mobile payments so we can consolidate still more of our lives into that all-important 3G/4G device. But user beware: The bigger the role the smart handset plays in your life, the more cautious you must be about holding onto it, encrypting it and having the ability to remote wipe it.
