People around the world now use wireless communications based on contactless IC chips to enjoy the incredible convenience of wave-and-go payments. In one city alone, Tokyo, millions of daily commuters zoom through ticket gates while waving plastic cards or phones loaded with e-money stored in contactless IC chips. Since 2004 DOCOMO has been using these same technologies in Osaifu-Keitai™, or "wallet mobile phones," for these and other contactless IC chip services for a variety of payment (credit card), marketing (coupons), empowerment (information) and security (building access) functions, all performed with the mere wave of a handset equipped with a FeliCa™ contactless IC chip.
The world of wireless convenience is now once again about to expand, or perhaps we should say "shrink" in the case of near field communication (NFC), a two-way wireless technology operating at 13.56 MHz over a relatively tiny distance of no more than 10 cm. While this distance is certainly not much, what can be accomplished in those 10 cm is huge.
Consider the intuitive simplicity of holding an NFC-enabled mobile phone close to a terminal to purchase products or services — just touch and go. Think about how easy it would be to set up a wireless home office just by holding your PC, keyboard, display and mouse close together. Imagine being able to tap a phone to a movie poster and download the trailer right there and then, or download coupons or special offers from a promotional flyer. Picture how simple public transportation would be without cash, cards or tokens, just by using your mobile device, even when travelling overseas.
In the foreseeable future, people will make purchases, get directions, exchange information, and buy transportation by waving a NFC-enabled phones or other mobile devices in front of information kiosks, retail registers, advertising signs, street posters, vending machines and thousands of other devices, systems and signage.
NFC also offers extended convenience and simplicity in another key way, by enabling chip-to-chip interconnectivity between mobile devices loaded with any of the three major contactless IC chips — Type A, Type B or Type F (FeliCa). NFC also enables these devices to work with all reader/writers of these systems. At present, the three systems are not compatible.
The first NFC-equipped mobile phone already has been released, the start of a trend that eventually should see NFC offered as a default feature in handsets, similar to BluetoothR. According to ABI Research, more than 300 million NFC-enabled mobile phones, or 21% of all mobile phones, are expected to be shipped in 2012 (see graph).
Comprehensive specifications are now being developed by the NFC Forum, which was established in 2004 and currently has 150 members from diverse industries working to standardize NFC technologies and the related ecosystem of network providers, hardware vendors, retailers, payment processors and other stakeholders. DOCOMO, one of the core members of the forum, is actively involved in NFC standardization, promotion and education.
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