InfoCom says operators ramp up NFC deployment plans.

April 13, 2011 - PRLog -- Stuttgart, Germany and Manila, Philippines — Operators worldwide pledged commitment to launch commercial NFC services in selected markets by 2012. Virtually all top telcos in Europe have laid out plans to launch commercial NFC services by 2012, for instance Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Vodafone. In the US, AT&T and Verizon Wireless have launched a collective effort to trial NFC services country-wide.

“Several carriers have forged already joint ventures and partnerships to ramp up the development of NFC services”, InfoCom Chief Analyst commented, “teaming up with other carriers as well as financial institutions” in order to launch pre-commercial trials of NFC services in their respective markets. “Such cooperation are vital to make the services work”, InfoCom analyst commented further.

Strategic partnership with financial providers enables operators to strengthen NFC offerings to allow mass-market services. In France, for instance, France Telecom teamed up with Barclaycard and MasterCard while Telefonica cooperates with La Caixa and Visa in Spain. “In Asia, carriers are already developing cross-border services”, an InfoCom Analyst located in Manila commented, ”South Korea SK Telecoms joined forces with Japanese KDDI and Softbank to launch trials for mobile payments and smart posters”. In the meanwhile, NTT Docomo teamed up with Korean incumbent KT to develop common specifications for NFC technologies to facilitate cross-border services for m-commerce, for instance mobile payments, mass ticketing and electronic coupon. InfoCom Analyst in Manila further commented: “But also in Asia, in preparation for the full-scale commercial launch, players push for the standardisation, a necessary condition in order to allow inter-state transactions and interoperability”.

Joint efforts characterised also international carriers’ organisations, such the GSM Association (GSMA), pushing to develop standardised deployment of NFC services, utilising SIM cards as the primary mode worldwide. The GSMA is currently developing certifications and test standards for the use of NFC SIM cards to ensure the interoperability of NFC service. Some carriers which are more advanced in the process, as KT, plans to submit their common specifications developed for their cross-border NFC service to international regulatory and standardisation bodies in order to facilitate the creation of a base, common ground for cross-border NFC services.

As NFC can virtually transform mobile phones into mobile wallets, carriers’ current initiatives aim to standardise NFC services in order to explore and develop additional applications for comprehensive mobile commerce service. Interactive advertising, for instance, is considered as one potential additional revenue stream.

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InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with almost 20 years experience providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries.