Near Field Communications World » Vodafone

NFC bus ticketing trial to take place in Madrid

Sarah Clark — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:33:35 +0000

An NFC bus ticketing pilot is to be run in Madrid, Spain by Bankinter and Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Madrid (EMT), beginning in mid-2010.

In the trial, the participants' NFC phones will act as payments cards that can be reloaded over-the-air or via the internet.

The trial will use a Trusted Service Manager (TSM) solution developed by Ericsson. Bankinter will be responsible for handling the payments function, including managing the reloading of funds to the phones. The system used will be compatible with Mifare DESFire contactless tickets.

Vodafone Spain is also running an NFC pilot in Madrid, with Spanish rail operator Renfe. And, earlier this week, Telefonica announced it is to run an NFC trial in the Spanish resort of Sitges, in conjunction with Visa and La Caixa bank.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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Vodafone tests NFC with Spanish railway operator

Sarah Clark — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:53:36 +0000

Vodafone Spain has announced it is conducting an NFC pilot in Madrid with Spanish rail operator Renfe, with the aim of speeding up access to train stations during peak travel times. The system was demonstrated to attendees of the mobile operator's Move '09 enterprise mobility event in Madrid last week. Vodafone says that a SIM based solution is being used in the pilot but no further details are available for now.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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IP specialist produces who’s who of NFC patent holders

Sarah Clark — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:37:26 +0000

TechIPm, a research and consulting firm specializing in technology and intellectual property mining, has carried out an analysis of the strength of the patent portfolios held by companies in the NFC market.

For its analysis, TechIPm used the Innography intellectual property business intelligence tool, which correlates patent data with financial, litigation and other key business information to generate visualizations of the technology landscape in a particular business sector.

According to TechIPm, "As of Oct. 20 2009, the key IPR holders and their IPR shares for NFC are as follows: Sony (229), Nokia (130), Microsoft (76), Philips (67), Broadcom (65), Samsung (58), Motorola (57), NXP (43), First Data (22), Qualcomm (22), IBM (19), Vodafone (18), and Inside Contactless (17)."

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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Transport and mobile operators begin NFC pilot in Lisbon

Sarah Clark — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:30:13 +0000

The Portuguese capital's transport operators have begun a small scale NFC test in conjunction with three mobile operators, beginning on the Lisbon subway and with plans to expand to rail and bus services soon.

LISBON: A small scale NFC trial has started on the city's metro service

The Transport Operators of the Lisbon Region (OTLIS) have begun a small scale near field communication trial on the Lisbon metro, the Metropolitano de Lisboa, in conjunction with mobile operators Optimus, TMN and Vodafone and with Oberthur Technologies, supplier of Lisbon's existing Viva travel cards.

25 people are participating in the first stage of the pilot. This will be expanded to 100 in November, using Sagem my700x NFC and the soon-to-be-released Nokia 6216 Classic phones, and to other Lisbon area transport operators including local rail and bus services.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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Telefónica O2 joins Deutsche Bahn’s NFC ticketing project

Sarah Clark — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:32:08 +0000

The mobile operator has joined Vodafone and T-Mobile in the German rail company's Touch&Travel NFC ticketing project, as it heads towards a major expansion of the pilot testing area and a future nationwide commercial launch.

ON TARGET: Travellers hold their NFC phones to Touchpoints like this before and after every journey

Telefónica O2 Germany has joined Vodafone and T-Mobile in participating in German rail operator Deutsche Bahn's Touch&Travel NFC ticketing project, as the rail company prepares for the next phase of testing in which the pilot area will expand to include long distance train services from Hannover to Frankfurt.

Developed in conjunction with technology partners Atron, Giesecke & Devrient and NXP, the Touch&Travel concept is a very simple one: Passengers touch their NFC phone to a Touch&Travel Touchpoint at the start of their journey and then touch their phone again to a Touchpoint at the end of their journey. The fare is then automatically calculated and charged to their Deutsche Bahn account, which is settled on a monthly basis via direct debit.

The first phase of the Touch&Travel pilot began in February 2008 and involved a technical test with 200 users on the Hannover to Berlin line and in the city of Potsdam, near Berlin.

In December 2008, it was extended to 500 users (and further extended to 2,500 during 2009) and to the entire S-Bahn commuter rail network and U-Bahn subway system in Berlin, as well as buses and trams in Potsdam.

In the spring of 2009, a second test area in the Schleswig Holstein region was added, on the route between the cities of Kiel and Lübeck and in the Eutin city area.

Now the pilot area is being expanded again to include long distance trains between Hannover and the city of Frankfurt. And, from January 2010, an additional 3,000 passengers will also take part in a further expansion of the test, this time encompassing services between the Ruhr region — including the city of Cologne — and Frankfurt, Hannover and Berlin.

"The fact that O2 joins the project enables us to provide the benefits of mobile ticketing to an even broader customer base and we are well positioned for the successful launch across Germany," says Birgit Wirth, Deutsche Bahn's Touch&Travel project manager.

ALL MAPPED OUT: The trial are will expand to cover routes between Berlin, Hanover, Frankfurt and the Ruhr from January 2010 (click on image to see full map)

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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Citi launches NFC trial in India

Sarah Clark — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:30:58 +0000

The financial services giant has partnered with Nokia, Vodafone, MasterCard and Vivotech to launch an NFC field trial in the Indian city of Bangalore.

TAP AND PAY: Citi's Bangalore trial will help it make decisions about a move towards contactless in the US market

Citi has launched an NFC field trial in Bangalore, the 6.8m population city thought of as India's Silicon Valley and which is also known locally as Bengaluru. Plans to run a trial in Bangalore were first announced by Citi in February, when it explained that the pilot's goal would be to provide it with the business case information it needs to renew its push towards contactless payments in its home market.

The Citi Tap and Pay pilot enables Citibank MasterCard Credit cardholders to use NFC phones to make payments at the point-of-sale and to receive promotional offers and discounts at a wide range of department stores, food courts, restaurants and fast food chains, book stores and multiplexes.

For the pilot, Citi has partnered with Vodafone as the mobile network operator, MasterCard to provide its PayPass contactless payment and security infrastructure and Vivotech, which is providing the underlying technology, including the NFC wallet, over-the-air (OTA) card provisioning software, smart posters and the mobile coupon application in addition to the contactless readers that participating merchants will use to accept payments.

To take part in the trial, Citi customers first need to purchase a Nokia 6212 Classic phone, pre-loaded with the Citi Tap and Pay application and enabled with MasterCard's PayPass contactless payments technology, from one of a number of Nokia stores in the city. They can then download their Citibank MasterCard credit card onto their mobile phone over-the-air. All purchases made using the NFC phone are then automatically charged to the customer's credit card account.

"Citi believes contactless mobile payment services will be a key lifestyle driver for our highly mobile, international and increasingly urban customer base, " says Jeff Semenchuk, EVP and head of growth ventures at Citi Innovation. "Exceptional customer value creation needs collaboration and we will always look to work together with key ecosystem partners in applying smart, everyday, everywhere technology around the globe, while keeping the customer at the forefront of everything we do."

"We hope this pilot will provide a new dimension to making electronic payments and prepare the ground for secure, large-scale, SIM-based sustainable deployment of NFC-enabled payments based on internationally standardised NFC technology, adding more choice and hence more value to our subscribers,"‬ adds Rajesh Dongre from Vodafone Essar, Vodafone's Indian subsidiary.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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GSMA calls for mass market NFC handsets by mid-2009

Sarah Clark — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:45:22 +0000

The mobile industry association has finalised its device requirements for NFC handsets and called on manufacturers to put phones incorporating the Single Wire Protocol interface into consumers' hands by the middle of next year.

WE WANT IT NOW! The GSMA wants all new mobiles NFC enabled from next year

The GSMA, the global trade group for the mobile industry, has called for full NFC functionality — including the standardised 'single wire protocol' interface — to be built into commercially available mobile handsets from mid-2009.

At a meeting in Macau this week, timed to coincide with the organisation's Mobile Asia Congress, the association's board came out in full support of the ETSI-endorsed Single Wire Protocol (SWP) standard as the best way of providing the interface between a handset's Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC or, more commonly, SIM) and the embedded NFC chipset within the handset.

The endorsement follows a series of trials involving nine mobile operators that have been taking place in eight different countries (Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Turkey and the US) under the GSMA's UICC-based Pay-Buy-Mobile banner. Further pilots are planned across 14 countries by 15 mobile operators.

The move comes after the GSMA issued a detailed device requirement document to a wide range of vendors and suppliers in July. The association says 37 key players responded, giving a clear picture of the core requirements for any SWP/NFC device.

"There is no doubt that there is a huge latent demand for a large variety of mobile transaction services, of which there is universal interest in proximity payments, as trials across the world have already shown," says Rob Conway, the organisation's chief executive. "We are committed to ensuring that mobile payment services are delivered as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. But this will require device manufacturers to make sure that the vast majority of commercially available handsets incorporate the Single Wire Protocol and Near Field Communications features as standard."

"Doing so would enable the industry to leverage significant economies of scale and ensure greater accessibility of NFC services for mobile users," he added.

"This call for handsets is supported by recent operator trial results which indicate a growing consumer demand for mobile payment services," says the GSMA:

In Taiwan, in a trial of over 200 users, FarEasTone found that 90% of people felt positive toward to this new service. 80% of people were satisfied that the service is secure, and 40% said they would switch their monthly spending to a mobile credit card service.
Seven banks and four mobile operators — including Orange and SFR — involved in the "Payez Mobile" trial in France have announced the results of trials conducted with almost 500 sales outlets and nearly 1000 triallists. Over 90% of triallists said they found contactless mobile payment convenient, fast, and easy to use. In addition, 94% declared that they would recommend it to their friends and family. Merchants welcomed the possibility of offering to their customers an innovative payment solution, with over 80% saying they appreciated the speed and cutting-edge appeal of mobile contactless payment.
Equally, in Korea, SKT and KTF found that m-transportation was very popular with users, and this is likely to translate to other mobile payment services. Approximately 450,000 users of the "T-money" service were quick to adopt the service as it is convenient and compatible with existing readers. According to KTF's survey, 85% of m-transportation users indicated satisfaction levels were 'very high'. 85% of them believe that using a contactless mobile phone is much more convenient than getting their wallet out to use public transportation, and would continue to use the mobile service. "T-money" attracts users not only for the public metro and bus, but also for small transactions such as buying goods from convenient stores by simply tapping on the contactless readers.

Both MasterCard and Visa are supporting the trials with their PayPass and PayWave contactless payments services and, in September 2008, the GSMA signed a memorandum of understanding to share information withEMVCo, the international payments organisation operated by JCB International, MasterCard and Visa.

On the handset front, Nokia already has a commercially available NFC-enabled phone in the form of the 6131 NFC and LG has just released a prototype, the KU380-NFC. Motorola, Sagem and Samsung are also developing phones for NFC-enabled mobile payment services, the GSMA says.

"Gemalto, G&D and KEBT are among the UICC card suppliers supporting NFC-enabled mobile payment services," says the GSMA, and "Vivotech and Harex are among the companies developing NFC-enabled readers that support NFC-enabled mobile payment services."

Senior representatives of mobile operators around the world have stepped up to the plate to add their individual endorsements to the GSMA's call for handsets:

"As one of the first operators to trial mobile payments, we've seen first-hand the willingness of consumers to adapt to this new payment channel which is very much dependent on the availability of NFC handsets and the associated ecosystem," says Kris Rinne, senior vice president of architecture and planning at AT&T. "We hope that the GSMA's delivery of a consolidated set of minimum requirements will accelerate the worldwide delivery of NFC-enabled handsets to the market."

"We observed great potential for mobile payment services through T-money. We believe it is changing the behaviour of users and expect it to see significantly increasing demand over time. Supportive actions and collaborations with banks and especially handset vendors will help to speed up this demand," added Sang Ryul Lee, VP of the Transaction Business Group at KTF.

"Orange has run trials in France, Spain and the UK which show a consistent appeal to consumers in all countries for SIM-based, operator managed, mobile NFC services," commented Mung-Ki Woo, VP of payment and contactless at Orange. "For Orange, mass deployment is now mainly dependent on handset manufacturers providing a large range of adequate handsets."

"As Malaysia's leading mobile operator, Maxis is very enthusiastic about enabling mobile payments via NFC and leveraging the growing contact-less payment infrastructure in Malaysia," says Dr Nikolai Dobberstein, head of products and new businesses at Maxis Communications. "We are collaborating with strong partners on this initiative, Maybank and Visa International, and our focus is to establish a mobile NFC eco-system for commercialization which provides Malaysian customers with accessible & easy to use mobile payments."

"We are pleased to be part of this pioneering and innovative project trial as it will further simplify payment transactions and in the long run, help spur the growth of mobile commerce our country. Meanwhile, we are anticipating that vendors will incorporate NFC functionalities as a default feature in their handsets so more people can enjoy the technology," said Napoleon L Nazareno, president and CEO of Smart Communications in the Philippines.

"Telstra recently conducted a contactless mobile payments pilot with Australia's National Australia Bank and Visa and early results from the trial are positive," added Telstra's Ross Fielding. "Findings from an online survey of participants in the pilot found a high propensity to use the service and further advocate its benefits to friends and family."

And Cenk Serdar, chief VAS officer at Turkcell, commented: "We see potential in the market for NFC based mobile payment services, which can both be seen from our customers and banks' feedbacks. We believe that the customers may gradually adapt our services once the supporting handsets are on the market."

The full list of mobile operators taking part in the Pay Buy Mobile initiative also includes Brasil Telecom, Celcom, Chunghwa Telecom, CMCC, EITC, Etisalat, Far Eastone, GlobeTel, IMC Island, Kall, KPN, MCI, Meteor, Mobicom, MobilKom Austria, Mobitel d. d., MTN, MTS, NTT DoCoMo, Partner, Pelephone, Rogers Wireless, SFR, SingTel, SingTel Optus, SK Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Starhub, Swisscom, TDC, Telecom Italia, Telefonica O2, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Vimpelcom, Vodafone, Wind and Zain.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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