Cellular South Testing Cell Phone Credit Card Payments
By Justin McHenry
Regional wireless provider Cellular South announced today the testing of its “Wireless Wallet,” which will give cell phone customers the ability to pay for items just by passing their cell phones in front of an electronic reader. The test, using a prototype Kyocera phone not available to the general public, is taking place with the help of more than a dozen partner retailers comprising 50 individual locations in Memphis, Tennessee and Jackson, Mississippi. About 75 Cellular South customers are participating in the trial.
The “Wireless Wallet” uses near-field communications (NFC) technology to send information from the phones to special readers installed at merchant locations.
Cellular South calls this “the first mobile wallet trial in the country to engage multiple retailers within a community.”
The WirelessWallet trial will run through August 2007, and the cell phone payment service is expected to be operational on a wider basis in early 2008.