Motorola M-Wallet cellphone payment system coming to US
Motorola plans to roll out a cellphone-wallet service in the US, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal. The service, to be known as the M-Wallet, won't be the first in the US; Cingular is testing a similar near-field communication service with Nokia in Atlanta, and Motorola itself announced a test service as far back as 2004. However, M-Wallet is likely to be the first such service to go national, and will compete head-to-head with other "swipeless" payment systems, such as MasterCard's PayPass. It's unclear at this point when Moto plans to roll out the service, which phones will support it, and, most importantly, which carriers will be involved. Moto says, however, that the M-Wallet chip will be available within six to nine months, and that the company is in discussions with carriers for rollout plans. Motorola also says that the service would be compatible with other manufacturers' devices, though they haven't said whether any other companies plan to participate.
