Chinese hurl $1.5bn into NFC city China Unicom, the country's second biggest network operator, has signed a $1.5bn deal with the Chongqing Municipal Government to create a world centre for the production of Near Field Communications kit. While the US network operators are joining together to create a payment system based on handsets, including NFC technology, …
ChongQing, a city in western China, needs industry diversification as presently it is dependent on motorcycles, automobiles and some mining.
Visitors remember a few things like the crowded streets, traffic jams and those hills, one after the other.
Is in the process of implementing (years late, hundreds of millions over budget) a NFC payment system for public transport. It's called "myki", pronounced "My Key"
The unstated and unreported sub-story is that someone hopes to be a world leader in providing a cash-replacement payment system.
Wisely, this dream has remained largely hidden from the Melbourne public, leaving them baffled as to why a simple public transport payment system should be so expensive and so difficult to implement.
No one loves NFC, except for Londoners, most of whom seem to use an Oyster card for the train. Oh, and people living in urban areas in Japan. The Suica and Pasmo cards, like the Oyster card, are used for the entire train and almost all the bus network in greater Tokyo (up to 90 minutes from the centre on non-shinkansen trains, well outside Tokyo proper). Many of the vending machines near and in stations accept them as do the stores in and around stations. Other payment systems such as the Edy and ID card systems are accepted by many restaurants and convenience stores. The loyalty card for Yodobashi Camera can be a swipe card or stored on your mobile phone. The trick is not to try to force everyone into a one size, one scheme system, but develop a variety of options. The mobile-embedded cards can be linked to a credit card account (or you can have a joint credit card and Suica card) or can be linked to the mobile phone account. Unfortunately you can't have an anonymous phone-embedded card because there's no way to charge it at the station (you have to physically enter the cards into the machines to charge them which is fine for the separate cards and the credit card-based ones but no good for a mobi). If you want to have fewer things to carry around (and lose) then embedding the card in your mobile, which you probably carry all the time anyway, is fine. If not, you can have a separate anonymous card with replacements purchasable everywhere.
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