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Fonelabs Launches X-Series Low-Cost NFC Enabled Mobile Phone for Emerging Markets
2 years ago
Fonelabs Sdn Bhd, a Malaysia based mobile device company, has announced the release of a new generation of low cost handsets that will support enhanced NFC services for developing markets. The X-Series phones will have a complete feature set for the price of a low cost phone, It will incorporate Near Field Communication (NFC) from NXP Semiconductors and an internal antenna together with an optional MicroSD based secure element. Offering full compatibility with MIFARE technology, these low cost NFC mobile phones can be used with most contactless transport applications and can support any financial application relying on smart cards. The X-series NFC enabled mobile phones from Fonelabs supporting NFC applications will be available in March 2009.
Mr. Herve Jegou CEO of Fonelabs, said, "In many developing markets today, NFC and contactless secure cards provide real convenience for urban transportation and are key to the spread of financial services to rural areas. With the X-Series NFC enabled mobile phones, we give transport operators and financial institutions in these markets the ability to easily deploy their existing contactless smart cards services into mobile phones.
Fonelabs works with Cell Idea, a young yet innovative solution provider which focuses on mobile payment and mobile transactions. Cell Idea provides a secure NFC Micro SD-card to store the secure applications that can be used in the X-series NFC phones.
“Right now transport operators and service providers can personalize, manage and distribute MicroSD smart cards to their customers just like any of today’s ATM or transport smart cards. Using their existing infrastructure and security model, service providers can instantly extend the convenience and reach of their services to mobile phones running on any mobile network,“ said Herve Jegou. “To succeed, NFC technology needs to be simple for both service providers and consumers. With our low cost X-Series phones, mobile contactless applications can be deployed today, with a simpler security and deployment model suitable for many developing markets."
The X-Series NFC mobile phones will also provide Single Wire Protocol (SWP) compatibility starting in Q3 2009. Using the latest SWP-compliant NFC controller from NXP Semiconductors, all X-Series mobile phones will then support routing of NFC applications to both SD card and SIM card based secure elements.
“Cell-Idea strongly believes in the value of Contactless and NFC technologies.” said by Omer Katz, CTO of Cell Idea. “we believe that MicroSD is a very powerful means of bringing smart-cards and secure applications to various Consumer Electric products, especially to mobiles. Our Secure NFC Micro-Card is the perfect vehicle for financial institutions, transport operators and other NFC service providers to store their applications in a safe and secure way that is easy to deploy.’’
Steffen Steinmeier, Global Marketing Manager for NFC at NXP Semiconductors said, “The introduction of this low-cost NFC enabled mobile phone from Fonelabs is a huge step forward in the wide-scale rollout of NFC technology in the South East Asia region. NXP has been working very closely with Fonelabs to develop this handset. As existing contactless infrastructure for automatic ticketing and mobile payments can be easily leveraged with NFC-enabled handsets, we are confident that these phones will find an instant market in countries such as China, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand.”
Inside Contactless Working with Qualcomm on NFC Mobile Handset Rollouts
2 years ago
Feb 19, 2009 PowerRating — Inside Contactless, a provider of advanced open-standard contactless chip technologies announced, that it is working with Qualcomm to accelerate the growth of the Near Field Communication (NFC) handset market by jumpstarting the product development cycle, speeding time to market and reducing development costs.
As part of the collaboration, the two companies said they will develop two 3G handset reference designs–one each for UMTS and CDMA2000 networks–that combine Qualcomm’s Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chipsets with Inside’s MicroRead multi-standard NFC chip.
Additionally, Qualcomm Ventures has joined Inside’s other venture capital and strategic investors making an equity investment of EUR4 million (US$5.2 million), extending Inside’s series C Preferred funding round and bringing the total for this round to EUR31.7 million (US$41.2 million).
"Incorporating Inside Contactless’s NFC technology into 3G reference designs based on MSM chipsets will provide additional value to OEMs and ODMs, enabling them to more quickly bring NFC handsets to market," said Len Lauer, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Qualcomm. "NFC’s convenience and ease of use for consumers has been shown in numerous technology field trials. We are working to help NFC gain traction among handset manufacturers by investing in, and collaborating with, leading technology providers such as Inside Contactless."
The reference designs are expected to be available starting in the second half of 2009 and will be among the first NFC handset reference designs available to the market.
"This alliance is significant not only for our MicroRead NFC solution, but for NFC technology and the mobile payments market in general. We believe the availability of these reference designs will provide a significant boost to the deployment of NFC-enabled 3G handsets worldwide," said Remy de Tonnac, chief executive officer of Inside Contactless. "We look forward to creating these reference designs with Qualcomm and contributing our expertise and ideas to further the development of the emerging NFC ecosystem."
According to de Tonnac, the availability of these reference designs will also likely encourage some handset makers to enter the market more quickly than they would if they had to develop this kind of solution themselves from scratch.
"By enabling secure contactless payments, NFC technology has the potential to become a major enabler of future mobile commerce applications," said Frederic Rombaut, director of Qualcomm Ventures Europe. "In addition to mobile payments, various applications such as transit, ticketing, discount coupons, mobile advertising and device pairing will help drive demand for NFC-enabled handsets."
