Mobile Ticketing Goes Mainstream

HAMPSHIRE, UNITED KINDOM--(Marketwire - March 5, 2008) - New research has estimated that over 2.6 billion mobile tickets will be delivered to just over 208 million mobile phone users by 2011. This is one of the key statistics from a landmark study by Juniper Research. The report found clear evidence that the sector is gearing up for major launches over the next few years. Early trials, mainly led by mobile network operators, are now migrating into commercial services that are controlled by the ticketing issuers themselves.

Benefits for the ticketing issuers include reduced cost, better security to help the fight against fraud and improved environmental footprint by reducing paper. Early use of mobile barcode technology will be gradually complimented by the emergence of NFC (Near Field Communications), in particular for the transportation ticketing sector where there are already commercial deployments in the Far East and important trials in Western Europe and North America.

Most encouraging for the sector is the wide adoption by some of the major organisations that control the issuance of tickets, such as Ticketmaster, British Airways and Tickets.com. This is coupled with the involvement of the key operators and technology providers such as O2, NTT, DoCoMo, Vodafone, Nokia and Samsung.

Juniper Research illustrates the current and near-future status of mobile ticketing with analysis and interviews from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile ticket industry.

Key findings from the report include:


-- Savings for the airline industry of $500 million each year by
migrating to mobile boarding passes
-- A total of almost $87 billion worth of mobile ticketing transactions
by 2011
-- NFC will start to create traction from 2009 onwards.

Completion of Core Mobile NFC Standard to Spark New Services

ETSI decision adds a key piece to the Mobile NFC jigsaw puzzle

London, GSMA Press Release 2008: The GSMA is pleased that the European Telecommunications Standards Institute has adopted the technical standards governing Mobile Near Field Communications (NFC) services supported by the Association and its members. The completion of the core of the technical standards removes a potential obstacle, enabling mobile operators to prepare for the rollout of contactless payment services and other applications that make use of this flexible short-range radio technology. Last week, members of ETSI selected the software protocol to control communication between the handset’s NFC chip and the SIM card, completing the standards necessary for handset makers to begin production of NFC-enabled phones in large volumes. As part of the GSMA’s Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, 13 mobile operators are running, or preparing to run, trials of contactless mobile payment services that make use of NFC technology. These trials are the precursor to commercial services that will enable consumers to use their handsets to quickly, easily and securely pay for goods and services in shops, restaurants and train stations. "ETSI's approval of the specification for a dedicated interface, or 'Host Controller Interface' (HCI), helps end uncertainty, complete the core mobile NFC standards and is an crucial milestone for the plans of the GSMA and its members to deploy contactless mobile payment services,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer of the GSMA. “The software protocol solution chosen by ETSI will make these new services easier to use by enabling consumers to access all the secure applications on their handset, no matter where they are stored, through one common interface."