Shall that be hard cash, credit, debit or, um, smartphone?Sprint Nextel Corp. verified last week that it intends to leapfrog its contenders with promises to roll out modern technology this year to allow customers check out at registers using their smartphones.
For the Overland Park, Kan.-based wireless carrier, that functionality can be quite a attractive way to seduce potential consumers desperate to use their cell phones like credit cards. Additionally it provides a innovative method for Sprint to make a few bucks by taking part in electronic shopping.
Sprint is working along with phone manufacturers and payment systems to bring to the public what the industry calls "near-field communication." Latest smartphones will emerge later this year with the technology built in.
That technology, called NFC capability, allows consumers to pay for coffee or a cab ride by tapping or waving their cellphones close to an electronic reader. The gadgetry is ubiquitous in tech-savvy Japan and is used for parking meters and transit rides in some European cities, but has yet to deploy in the United States.
Competitors Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are working together with banker Barclays on a competing technology called Isis. In that system - which may not emerge for another year or more - the wireless companies would pocket a fraction of each transaction. Customers would pay off the purchases with their monthly cellphone bills.
