Consortium announces Atlanta NFC trial

Cingular Wireless, Nokia, Philips, financial firm Chase and other companies have announced a trial of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, for mobile phone applications, including contactless payments, mobile content and premium arena services at Philips Arena in Atlanta.

The trial is the first large-scale test of next-generation mobile phone applications in North America. NFC to date already has been tested fairly extensively in Europe. The other companies involved in the Atlanta trial include Visa USA, ViVOtech and Atlanta Spirit, LLC, parent company of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, NHL's Atlanta Thrashers and Philips Arena.

During the trial, Atlanta Thrashers and Hawks season ticket holders with Chase-issued Visa credit accounts and Cingular Wireless accounts can make contactless payments at concession stands and access mobile content from numerous locations throughout the arena. Users can purchase items by holding their Nokia 3220 mobile phones equipped with Philips' NFC semiconductor chips and ViVOtech software near a secure terminal.

Approximately 150 contactless point-of-sale (POS) readers have been deployed by ViVOtech throughout Philips Arena. Cingular will handle the content downloads over its network.

"By 2010, we expect that over 50% of all mobile handsets will incorporate Near Field Communication chips to enable short-range, easy and secure transactions," said Erik Michielsen, director at market analyst firm ABI Research, in the announcement issued by the participating companies. "The NFC implementation at Philips Arena demonstrates NFC stakeholders, including chipmakers, card issuers, device makers, mobile carriers and content providers, are progressively more willing to collaborate on NFC solution development. This type of co-development is essential to NFC market growth and maturation."