2016: Death of the wallet as NFC tap-cash arrives at last Forrester research reckons 2016 will be the year when electronic cash takes off, thanks to PayPal, but over at ABI they're saying 2014 will see Google Wallet filling virtual pockets. Forrester's research is based on conversations with 10 "senior executives", while the ABI prediction comes from its "Mobile Wallet Strategies" …
'Forrester's research is based on conversations with 10 "senior executives"' - wow, how many thousands did they charge for a bit of executive lunch conversations? I'm sorry, I'm just feeling dirty that anyone could get away with chatting to 10 dicks and making out that it is statistically significant enough to charge money for.
The cost of dealing with cards was absorbed by the retailer as the cost of doing business.
In recent years they've been adding the surgharge on to customer transactions for thsoe that elect to pay by card.
Unfortunately, they seem to now be building this charge in to sale prices in the assumption that everyone pays by card.
If it means discounts at the tills for those that pay by cash, then I'll happily carry a few notes around if it means a potential discount of 1.5% (or whatever it is) at the tills.
All the middleman is doing, is driving up our prices as their "cut" gets factored in ... and I for one am not happy about it. *bangs fist on desk and spills tea*
Kids these days. Get paid a good wad of dosh to chat up with half a score executives of companies who want to track our every move because that's their business model, and ask them to predict when they'll've succeeded in taking over our wallets with their electronic gadgets, and get to call it "research" too. Nice for the resume, I'm sure, but what it has to do with science is a bit beyond me.
Then again, that's a couple more years leeway to tell our friends and family exactly what it means to forego cash and, well, ask them vote with their wallets. Personally, unless the replacement is truly and provably anonymous, I won't want it, and neither should anyone else on this side of the payments divide.
Mondex anyone.
Didn't work in Swindon.
Whatever is used has to be as conveninet , accepted everywhere, and untracable as cash for all sorts of reasons from losing VAT, to a partner not finding out what your reading habits , and I mean the Daily Mail there :) None of the systems so far do that, so cash will remain king.
Please let us mere mortals know what planet you are living on.
Do you really think that.
"ability to transfer funds seamlessly from one "wallet" to another (without charge!)"
will be allowed.
The will be at least a 10% handling charge levied by the banks etc.
Then what is to stop the guy standing next to you on the 17:30 tube from Bank to Barnet from emptying your wallet during the crush from Bank to Camden?
Fail Sir. I say Fail.
My wife has stopped banking cash a long time ago, as the banks charge her an arm and a leg for handling cash. Creditors are now paid cash as far as possible, whilst sudry expenses are also paid in cash.
I think banks have already cottoned on to the fact that people do not like paying extortion fees, that is why they are pushing other, safer (at least for them, as they are guaranteed an income) methods of payment.
<---- Evil banks/bankers, of course.
but in that case, because we are all broke, not because most of us are dying, like certain Reg employees, to wave mobile phones at a terminal in order to purchase biscuits. Odd, is it not, that neither Forrester research nor ABI seem to be aware that there's an economic crisis rolling over the world ?...
Henri
California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday welcomed the decision by a group of telecom and cable industry associations to abandon their legal challenge of the US state's net neutrality law SB822.
"My office has fought for years to ensure that internet service providers can't interfere with or limit what Californians do online," said Bonta in a statement. "Now the case is finally over.
"Following multiple defeats in court, internet service providers have abandoned this effort to block enforcement of California's net neutrality law. With this victory, we’ve secured a free and open internet for California's 40 million residents once and for all."
The Biden White House has put forward a plan that could see 40 percent of households in the United States getting subsidized high-speed internet, with some having service free of charge.
The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was created as part of the recently passed infrastructure law, and will reimburse bills from internet service providers (ISPs).
Households covered by the ACP will have internet service costs reduced by up to $30 a month, or up to $75 a month if they live on tribal lands.
The FTC has settled a case in which Frontier Communications was accused of charging high prices for under-delivered internet connectivity.
The US telecommunications giant has promised to be clearer with subscribers on connection speeds, and will cough up more than $8.5 million, or less than a day in annual profit, to end the matter.
Frontier used to primarily pipe broadband over phone lines to people in rural areas, expanded to cities, and today supplies the usual fare to homes and businesses: fiber internet, TV, and phone services.
Starlink customers who've been itching to take their dish on the road can finally do so – for a price.
The Musk-owned satellite internet service provider quietly rolled out a feature this week called Portability which, for an additional $25 per month, will allow customers to take their service with them anywhere on the same continent – provided they can find a clear line-of-sight to the sky and the necessary power needed to keep the data flowing.
That doesn't mean potential Starlink customers sign up for service in an area without a wait list and take their satellite to a more congested area. Sneaky, but you won't get away with it. If Starlink detects a dish isn't at its home address, there's no guarantee of service if there's not enough bandwidth to go around, or there's another outage.
The Communication and Workers Union (CWU) will this week publish the timetable to run an industrial action ballot over the pay rise BT gave to members recently, with the telco's subsidiaries to vote separately.
Earlier this month, BT paid its 58,000 frontline workers a flat rate increase of £1,500 ($1,930) for the year, upping it from the £1,200 ($1,545) initially offered. BT hadn't cleared this increase with the CWU, and the union branded the offer as unacceptable at a time when inflation in Britain is expected to soar by 10 percent this year.
In a public town hall meeting last week, the CWU said it will take an "emergency motion" to the Annual Conference this week to "set out the exact ballot timetable," said Karen Rose, vice president at CWU.
Parts of South Yorkshire are to get fiber broadband run through mains water pipes in a two-year trial to evaluate the viability of the technology for connecting more homes.
The move will see fiber-optic cable strung through 17 kilometers of water mains between Barnsley and Penistone under a government-sanctioned technology trial. The project appears to be part of a £4m fund announced last year to trial ways of connecting up hard-to-reach homes without digging up roads.
Another section of the trial will be to test out whether fiber installed inside water pipes can be used to help water companies detect leaks, and so cut down on water wastage.
In an analysis of 3,356 fixed-line broadband deals in 220 countries, price comparison website Cable.co.uk found that the UK has the 92nd cheapest internet, beating the US, which came in 134th place.
Based on 41 packages, the average cost per month for broadband in Britain came in at $39.01. Stateside, this rose to $55, from 34 packages measured.
For these bulwarks of western democracy, 92nd and 134th place isn't particularly impressive. But if you really want to shave the dollars off your internet bill, you have a number of options.
Column I heard an electric discharge, a bit like a Jacob's ladder, immediately before a deafening crack of thunder. I'd never been so close to a lightning strike! All of the lights in the house went bright, then dimmed, then went back to normal. "Uh-oh," I thought, "I'm in trouble now." Everything in the house had been hit by a nasty surge and the oft-spoken aphorism that broadband services are now a utility to rank with water and electricity was suddenly very, very, real to me.
But it was electricity I worried about first. I use top of the line surge protectors so my most sensitive devices – computers and monitors, of which I have many – all seemed fine. But I'd overlooked two other connections that come into nearly every home: the antenna and the phone line.
My television seemed to have taken a direct hit. It still worked – mostly – but appeared unable to receive any digital broadcasts. That circuit, lying on the other side of the antenna lead, likely took a big hit from the lightning strike. But the rest of the television seemed fine – at first. After a few days, and several spontaneous reboots, I began to intuit that devices don't always immediately fail when hit by lightning. Sometimes they gradually shed their functions and utility.
The telecoms kit market had a good 2021 with revenues close to $100bn, up more than 20 percent since 2017, but growth is now slowing, according to analyst Dell'Oro Group. Huawei is also starting to feel the effect of sanctions, but still leads the global market by a fair margin.
However, the Dell'Oro Group's prediction of slightly less growth for 2022 may turn out to be optimistic amid warnings that the Ukraine war is already having an impact on the fragile supply chain recovery.
Dell'Oro's analysis is based on the telecoms market sectors it monitors, including Broadband Access, Microwave & Optical Transport, Mobile Core Network (MCN), Radio Access Network (RAN), and Service Provider Router & Switch.
Optical-fibre internet now makes up 32 per cent of fixed broadband subscriptions across the OECD countries, and is the fastest growing broadband technology. However, there is a mixed picture with cable still dominant in the Americas and the UK still predominantly DSL.
These figures come from an update to the OECD's broadband portal, indicating that fibre subscriptions grew by 15 per cent across the OECD countries between June 2020 and June 2021, with demand for faster internet speeds as employees worked remotely due to COVID-19 restrictions cited as one reason.
Fixed broadband subscriptions in OECD countries totalled 462.5 million as of June 2021, up from 443 million a year earlier, while mobile broadband subscriptions totalled 1.67 billion, up from 1.57 billion a year earlier.
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