How Long Before NFC Payments are Used by 10% to 20% of Consumers?

Consumer adoption of new technologies often can take a while, even when the application or product is deemed to have clear value. It might take an application, service or device to reach 10 percent penetration of U.S. households, for example.

There are some caveats. Not every innovation succeeds. But a Wall Street Journal illustration of past adoption rates for new and popular consumer electronics products shows how long mass adoption can take, even if rates of adoption for newer products and technologies have grown significantly shorter than in the past. 

A panel I was recently on was asked how long it might take for near field communications technology to be adopted by a significant number of U.S. consumers. My response, based on past work studying consumer electronics adoption rates, was that it can take quite a significant amount of time, between three and 10 years, to reach the crucial 10-percent-of-homes threshold, which seems to be the point at which any innovation really begins to accelerate, in terms of adoption.



Also, the more complicated the ecosystem, the longer it will take. Apple iPhones and iPads did not take long to reach the 10-percent penetration mark, because they operate in a fully-developed ecosystem where all that is required is purchase of a product, to obtain the value.

Mobile payments will likely take longer, as will NFC adoption, because lots of other things must be done, on the business infrastructure level, before 10 percent of U.S. consumers will easily be able to use NFC, on a large scale.

We often hear that it will be year X when some percentage of phones shipped will include NFC capabilities, or year Y when X percent of phones in use will have NFC. That's an important metric, but only one metric among many that has to be substantial before NFC-based payments are ubiquitous enough, valuable enough and easy enough to use. It isn't as though the credit card and debit card payment system is broken.

Despite the legitimate excitement, it might take some time before NFC-based mobile payments are a widely-used payment mechanism in the U.S. market.

LTE Advanced: 954 Mbps in 60 MHz

Ericsson has demonstrated Long Term Evolution "Advanced," running at 964 Mbps, in 60 MHz of spectrum, to the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency. The demonstration, held in Kista, Sweden, featured speeds more than 10 times faster than those currently experienced by LTE consumers in Sweden.

If you have enough bandwidth, you can go fast!

LTE Advanced: mobile broadband up to 10 times faster - Ericsson

10 Airline "Location" Apps

Location-based services are supposed to offer value to businesses and end users. It isn't so clear, yet, that they always do so. But here are 10 applications airlines have created to target and "track" their customers, speed customers through unfamiliar airports, entertain or provide messaging.

Top 10 Location Based Service Initiatives by Airlines

France Telecom Debuts Data "Family Plan"

Executives at AT&T have been saying for some time that the firm expected ultimately to introduce data plans that are shaped as many mobile family plans now are, allowing devices on a single account to share a single bucket of usage.

For a couple of months now, France Telecom’s Orange unit has been allowing iPad owners in Austria to share one allotment of data with a phone, while other shared data plans were recently launched in France, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Although the plans vary somewhat by country, the basic premise is the same. Users pay an extra couple of dollars a month for each additional device that shares data, similar to the way families and businesses here have long been able to share minutes between multiple phones.

“We believe that’s really a way for the future,” said Olaf Swantee, senior executive vice president for France Telecom’s Orange unit.

France Telecom Debuts the Data Plan of the Future - Ina Fried - Mobile - AllThingsD

Square Moves into Wallet Functions

Some of us would argue that there is an intimate connection between mobile payments and mobile wallet functions and business opportunities. Now Square, the mobile credit card acceptance system for iPhones and iPads, has moved into the credentials or wallet function as well.



https://squareup.com/cardcase

How Telcos Can Play in Apps

Neustar’s “Intelligent Cloud” is one answer to questions many will have about how applications can take advantage of mobile network features such as location, messaging and other features, without lots of grief. Instead of negotiating separate business deals with AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile USA, a developer can simply work with Neustar’s Intelligent Cloud, which itself handles all the details, and presents the developer with a simple API.

Another example is “BlueVia,” a developer platform offered by Telefonica. The whole idea is to offer an application programming interface (API) that essentially makes it easy for an application developer to incorporate mobile network features into a third party application.

How Telcos Can Play in Apps | Mobile Marketing and Technology

Google NFC Partner ViVOtech Raises $24 million

ViVOtech, the near field communication software and systems company, has raised $24 million in Series C funding from Singapore’s EDBI, SingTel Innov8, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, Alloy Ventures, Citi Ventures (the venture arm of Citigroup), Draper Fisher Jurveston, DFJ Gotham, First Data Corporation, Miven Ventures, Motorola Mobility, Nokia Growth Partners and NCR. This brings ViVOtech’s total funding to $80 million.

ViVOtech has installed more than 800,000 NFC systems in 35 countries. The company’s readers are found in big-name retailers and stores such as McDonalds, Home Depot and Whole Foods as well is in taxi cabs.

Google NFC Partner ViVOtech Raises $24M