BARCELONA, Spain – It’s an oft-repeated goal by NFC backers–to enable customers to use a variety of NFC services when they roam in different countries by downloading the local applications when they arrive at the airport or at the point of service.
But given the interoperability problems that telcos and service providers have faced in their domestic markets, ensuring interoperability for local NFC applications across borders will not be easy.
Yet major mobile operators in four East Asian markets are taking a shot at it, forming the Asia NFC Alliance, which was announced Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The main mission of the group is to set technical standards and platforms to enable customers to use NFC services when they travel to the various markets.
The telcos forming the group–Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan, HTK-PCCW of Hong Kong, KDDI of Japan and an affiliate of SK Telecom of South Korea–are the most active in supporting standard NFC infrastructure in their respective markets. They say they will open the group to other telcos and also to service providers.
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Among Topics Covered:
Description of Asia NFC Alliance Likely first cross-border applications supported Potential problems for the roaming alliance NFC Challenges for founding telcos in their home marketsAmong Sources Quoted (all actual and exclusive quotes):
Joseph Kuo, managing director, value-added services, Chunghwa Telecom
Richard Midgett, managing director, PCCW-HKT
Alex K.T. Kun, SVP, product development and management, PCCW-HKT
J.H. Kah, CEO, SK Planet International
Among companies and organizations mentioned:
Chunghwa Telecom
PCCW-HKT
KDDI
SK Telecom
SK Planet International
GSMA
Chinatrust Commercial Bank
Cathay United Bank
Taishin International Bank
E.Sun Commercial Bank
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