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French Officials Announce Date for Nice Trial
French officials in Nice have announced the date–May 21–for the launch of the much-anticipated NFC demonstration project, designed to showcase the range of mobile services made possible by Near Field Communication.
Christian Estrosi, France’s minister of industry as well as the mayor of Nice, will officially launch the project, which French officials are billing as a “first in Europe.” They had kept the date quiet until now.
With multiple mobile operators and service providers, Nice will serve as a critical test of France’s cooperative approach to NFC.
The project involves all three of France’s major telcos, France Telecom-Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom, along with mobile virtual network operator NRJ Mobile. They will put at least 3,000 or 4,000 NFC phones on sale to subscribers supporting applications on SIM cards. Service providers, such as Nice’s transit operator, Veolia Transport, and French banks will be able to download and manage applications on the SIMs.
Besides tapping their phones to ride buses and trams in and around the French Mediterranean city or to pay for retail purchases, subscribers will be able to get information by tapping their phones on RFID tags embedded in posters or other public displays. That includes updated transit schedules at bus and tram stops, and facts and commentary from museum exhibits and historical monuments. The nearby University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis will also introduce student services. And a range of other applications from service providers could follow–from enabling passengers to check-in and download boarding passes at nearby Nice Côte d'Azur Airport to letting elderly shut-ins tap their phones on easy-to-reach tags to call relatives or summon home-health workers.
Organizers contend Nice is not just another NFC trial, and they intend for it to be a prelude to national rollouts in 2011. The mobile operators say they plan to add more phones and models as the handsets become available, though they will start with only one model–the Samsung S5230, also known as the Player One in France.
“For us, it’s the first time we do something for real: Real customers using real money to buy real phones for real services,” said Laurent Jullien, director of contactless and payment services for Bouygues, speaking at a conference late last year.
The run-up to the Nice launch has not gone entirely without problems, however.
While mobile payment is one of the key services to be showcased, it’s unclear just how broadly bank applications and contactless point-of-sales terminals will be available. Organizers will probably wait until the fall to fully promote bank payment. And despite the cooperative approach, French telcos and banks are said to still be at odds over how to share revenue for the hoped-for NFC m-payment rollouts.
Also, the sole NFC phone available for the launch, the Samsung S5230, while popular in France, is not a 3G model. That could mean longer wait times for subscribers when they download transit tickets or bigger content over the air.
There was also some debate late last year over why the handset did not feature an NFC chip from a French chipmaker. More recently, the handset has experienced some teething problems, including lapses in communication with terminals. That has also been a problem for organizers of trials in neighboring Spain. Organizers say Samsung has fixed the problems.
But besides the Samsung phone, the only other NFC model organizers in France have disclosed so far for the project is the Cosyphone from Sagem Wireless, which targets the over 50 crowd. This model will not arrive until after the launch later this month.
Still, despite the limited choice of handsets and likely delays in bank payment, the Nice project enjoys the support of the French government, as well as that of the major mobile operators and most service providers.
So after it officially launches May 21, Nice promises to be among the most significant NFC projects held anywhere to date.
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