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Japan’s three major mobile operators, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile, announced today they have formed the Japan NFC Consortium to help them set standards for making the move to NFC from proprietary FeliCa technology.

The group will assist the telcos to “coordinate the adoption of multiple international standards” for the move to NFC technology, to be incorporated in mobile phones and NFC services, said an announcement. 

Update: A representative from DoCoMo told NFC Times that the group would develop technical specifications for phones, secure elements and other equipment and also to set procedures for applications. End update.

Japan has the most developed contactless-mobile infrastructure of any country, with more than 60 million phones and hundreds of thousands of terminals supporting FeliCa technology from Japan’s Sony Corp.

But the transition from FeliCa to standard NFC will not be an easy one. As NFC Times reported earlier this year, plans call for the operators to order “hybrid” NFC phones that pack both NFC and separate FeliCa chips, in order to work with the large installed base of contactless point-of-sale terminals, transit readers and others that support FeliCa. 

That will require handset makers to produce specially equipped phones. Among those phone manufacturers expected to support the move with devices is Samsung, DoCoMo said earlier. Japanese handset makers, which now produce the vast majority of FeliCa wallet phones, are also expected to provide hybrid models. There will also be a need for putting FeliCa on SIM cards. The move to hybrid NFC-FeliCa phones is expected to begin late next year, though FeliCa-based SIMs probably will come later.

The move to standard NFC will enable the rollout of mobile services in Japan that use the type A and type B options of the international contactless standard. This could support the introduction of Visa payWave and MasterCard PayPass to Japan, along with the possibility of putting such applications as Japan's contactless driver’s licenses onto mobile phones.

Japanese subscribers also could use their phones for NFC services when they roam overseas and foreign visitors could potentially tap to pay or use other NFC applications while in Japan, assuming more non-FeliCa terminals are rolled out there.

Merchants and others also would be able to buy cheaper terminals, since FeliCa-based terminals are usually more expensive than those supporting types A and B.

While the NFC standard supports FeliCa communication protocols–with Sony being a co-creator of NFC–Japanese contactless-mobile phones and terminals also support additional proprietary FeliCa protocols, which means standard NFC phones and applications cannot be used at FeliCa terminals in Japan and Japanese subscribers cannot tap their FeliCa wallet phones in Europe or North America.

The formation of the NFC Mobile Consortium adds momentum to the move to NFC in Japan and also indicates DoCoMo is likely fully onboard.

There have been questions as to how enthusiastic DoCoMo and giant transit operator East Japan Railway are to moving off of the exclusive use of FeliCa technology, which they helped to spearhead. DoCoMo has rolled out its own contactless-mobile payment brand, iD, using FeliCa, so would not be eager to see competition from Visa and MasterCard, which NFC would make possible. JR East operates an interoperable fare-collection scheme based on FeliCa.  

Update: Kyoshi Mori, who focuses on NFC and innovations in DoCoMo's frontier services department, told NFC Times that top DoCoMo management is committed to deploying NFC handsets. He said the operator's investments in FeliCa-based payment and other services would not cause it to try to hold NFC back in Japan: “We're really a mobile network operator first, and second we’re a service provider,” he said. End update.

DoCoMo's operator rivals, KDDI and Softbank, on the other hand, have been eager to move to standard NFC and have held NFC trials. KDDI might have the first hybrid NFC-FeliCa phone on the market, earlier in 2012 than DoCoMo, whose first hybrid phone is not expected until the fourth quarter of 2012.

Creation of the consortium is not expected to lead to the formation of a joint venture to roll out NFC services in Japan, as telcos in the United States and Europe have done or plan to do. It will likely resemble the Association Française du Sans Contact Mobile, a group coordinating standards and procedures for the rollout of NFC in France, led by the major French telcos.