[3GScottishUser]

Visitors to fast food outlets in Japan will soon be able to pay for their burgers with their mobile phones.
Japanese mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo is teaming up with McDonalds to offer electronic payments and special promotions for mobile users.

Using mobile phones to pay for goods is a massive growth area as operators look for new ways to make money.

Japanese mobile owners are leading the way, paying for food and train tickets via their handsets.

Tracking habits

For Julie Ask, an analyst with research firm Jupiter, the partnership illustrates the need to have upfront agreements and co-operation for the chain needed for electronic payments to be a success.

"Otherwise it suffers from the chicken and egg problem. POS [Point of Sale] equipment is needed to interoperate with technology in the cell phones. Carriers and handset manufacturers need incentives to add cost into the cell phones. There has to be a network for it to be interesting to anyone," she said.

The deal could also provide invaluable information about customer behaviour, she said.

"It gives both McDonald's and DoCoMo the opportunity to track consumers and their eating habits. Cash is more likely to be used in small transactions. Electronic payments will allow user behaviour to be tracked and used for marketing purposes," she said in her blog.

Increasingly mobile phone operators are experimenting with electronic payments.

Mobile credit card

In the UK, YourRail is working with Chiltern Railways to offer commuters the chance to buy tickets with their mobile phones.

Users buy their ticket on the internet and it is delivered to their mobile phone in the form of a barcode. Gates are currently being installed at Marylebone station which will scan phones.

In Japan, DoCoMo set up a service which allows customers to use their handsets as a credit card.

By April there were around 3m wallet phones in Japan using a pre-paid credit system where users topped up their account, often via a website, before using their phone to pay for something.

The joint venture between McDonalds and DoCoMo - worth 300 million yen - will see McDonalds Japan holding a 70% stake, with DoCoMo owning the rest. It is due to begin in July of this year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6400217.stm

[Hands0n]

Yet more reason for people to be looted of their mobile phones?

Recently, a London "yoof gang" recently turned up at the gates of a local school here and systematically robbed each pupil of their phone (and any MP3 players) as they left the gates. The school did nothing, the Police did not arrive in time (thats another story altogether), no arrests were made and no items were recovered. Allegedly, many tens of handsets were taken in that raid - noone knows for sure as many of the kids were terrified to talk.

I know that we can't stifle technology in the face of such things but ....... when this happens so close to home it does rather make you wonder if we should be even contemplating turning mobile phones into surrogate credit/debit cards.

This was an isolated inccident here - but nationwide the theft of mobile phones is big business. Should we be seeding it even more?

Perhaps when we're as well ordered a society as Japan?

[3g-g]

Perhaps when we're as well ordered a society as Japan?

That's hit the nail right on the head there. In Japan, there's no rubbish anywhere, no-one is shouting in the street, no-one is just hanging about loitering, absolutely everyone has a phone, and I mean everyone. Nearly all the phones are the same, in terms of size and capability, there's no real reason to want anyone elses... It's a great idea, and it works so well over there. For example when I was over, my brother looks up the train times on his phone, tells him the cost and lines to take, he walks to the barrier and swipes his mobile over a sensor and the cost is debited from him, no cash needed. Fantastic.

In the UK however, in fact, the west in general, it'd be a recipe for disaster.

If you want to read more you can here (http://www.nttdocomo.com/glossary/m/MobileSuica.html) and here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica)

One additional point, which I found hilarious as to why everything Japanese would never work in the UK. While waiting on a train, on a pillar on the platform was a massive red button with a sign underneath it saying "to stop the train press the button". How long do you think that'd last in the UK!?