Mobile wallet, anyone? Fourteen operators within the GSM Association, representing 40 percent of the world's mobile customers, have agreed to a standard approach to implementing near-field communication (NFC) technology in mobiles, opening the door to using a mobile device to interact more directly with services and infrastructure by adding RFID-like technology to handsets. Applications include mobile ticketing, payment, access (by acting as a key), and interaction with advertising and annotated environments, for example.

I contacted Timo Arnall, design researcher and leader of the Touch project for his comments on the agreement:

"It's good to see more moves for standardization, beyond the work of the NFC Forum. It's also very encouraging to see that NFC is recognized as an important feature alongside the other technologies being rolled into handsets. In terms of the global rollout of NFC handsets, it will be a difficult challenge. It comes down to chicken and egg problems of simultaneous service rollouts, not just in different regions, but different countries, even down to the individual city level. More standardization of NFC hardware and software will ease this hurdle but it's still a huge challenge."

Of course, the road to hell is paved with standards agreements, as I experienced as a close observer of digital payment standards in the mid 1990s. Hopefully the Japanese experience with NFC-like applications will provide ample case studies for other operators to jump on board and make NFC one of the next areas of development.

(Image © Timo Arnall)