Jungle Buzz: Telephone Co’s Quest to Rule the Air

A joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless, has recently been launched to set up a mobile commerce network using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, called Isis. Isis will be using Discover’s national payment infrastructure along with Barclaycard’s expertise in contactless and mobile payments and eventually be available to all interested merchants, banks and mobile carriers. The same NFC that will be available on the upcoming iPhone 5 as stated in the 2010-2015 smartphone article.

Not surprisingly, Google‘s CEO, Eric Schmidt revealed at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, that Google is working on a sophisticated computer chip and an update to their OS system that will enable users to use it as a credit card. The computer chip will use NFC technology and the new OS is named “Gingerbread.” Schmidt said that he doesn’t see it as anytime soon before phones replace credit cards, as he will still be using his credit card for many, many more years. But he also envisioned a day when “phones will be able to alert their owners when they are passing by a merchant with a product or service on their shopping list.”

According to Michael Abbott, Chief Executive Officer of Isis, “Our mobile commerce network, through relationships with merchants, will provide an enhanced, more convenient, more personalized shopping experience for consumers” he went on to say that, “While mobile payments will be at the core of our offering, it is only the start. We plan to create a mobile wallet that ultimately eliminates the need for consumers to carry cash, credit and debit cards, reward cards, coupons, tickets and transit passes.”

As going with the trend of eventually hooking up everything to the internet this isn’t really surprising. In the near future your smartphone will allow you to do everything such as, use it as a credit card, unlock doors, and serve as a virtual map of your surroundings, while at the same time, being “socially” connected. Smartphones won’t be the only the only thing receiving the data as there will be M2M (Machine 2 Machine) connections. This will allow for example, your car to “talk” to a another car to avoid a crash while maintaing a very high speed to keep traffic flowing.  If you think I’m joking IBM has recently put a patent application for traffic lights that can remotely halt your engine, to make you stop.

The key thing to develop, to enable this system is the airwaves. A few days ago, Boeing, sent the largest communication antenna ever into space. It will enable 4G-LTE mobile broadband wireless connection that will get rid of the use for so many cell phone towers. Over the coming years the spectrum will be auctioned off to the telephone companies, such as, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.

An article came out recently, about a task force of mobile operators, including, AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom Orange, KT, NTT DOCOMO, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, are developing an open standard to bring mobile broadband to non-traditional platforms that will allow M2M services. Their looking “to explore the development of an embedded SIM that can be remotely activated.” The telephone companies want to make it easier to bring all of the information that’s on your SIM to other devices. Devices such as “cameras, MP3 players, navigation devices and e-Readers, as well as smart meters.”

“The traditional SIM has been an important innovation in mobile telephony, and has provided many benefits to consumers in terms of security, portability of contacts, and ease of portability of devices across networks,” said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board of the GSMA. “As our industry moves from connecting phones to connecting a wide range of devices, it is apparent that the embedded SIM could deliver even greater flexibility. The embedded SIM will provide assured levels of security and portability for consumers, as well as provide additional functionality for enabling new services such as e-Wallet and NFC applications.”

According to that same article the telephone companies will all be working with major SIM producers.These sort of SIM capabilities are expected to come around 2012. It seems like the telephone companies are moving on all fronts and smartphone makers are tagging right along with it.