The handset issue

However, despite the public appetite for NFC-based mobile ticketing, there are currently two main barriers to its broader adoption.

The first is the lack of widely available, inexpensive NFC handsets. The Nokia 6216 already supports the NFC standard, and Malaysian manufacturer Fonelabs went into mass production with its US$120 X-Series NFC devices at the end of December, with the expectation of selling two million units this year. But there are few other commercial offerings on the market. This is due to a classic chicken-and-egg situation: manufacturers don’t want to commit resources until there is a clear volume market, and such a market is unlikely to materialise until they do so. However, interim fixes are available, in the form of MicroSD cards that can be inserted into existing phone slots and stickers that can be attached to the back of phones to upgrade them – although such solutions are, inevitably, not as elegant as devices with native support, says Clark.

“These products do have potential, but they should be seen as bridging solutions and as a way to get NFC trials started,” she explains. “They’re not as good as functionality that is built into a phone from the outset. For example, users might have to orient their phone quite carefully to get it to work, rather than just wave and go.”

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