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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

BARCELONA, Spain – It’s an oft-repeated goal by NFC backers–to enable customers to use a variety of NFC services when they roam in different countries by downloading the local applications when they arrive at the airport or at the point of service. 

Japanese mobile operators KDDI and Softbank Mobile have launched an NFC couponing service in a popular Korean district of Tokyo, implemented by an affiliate of South Korea’s largest mobile operator, SK Telecom.

The 10-year anniversary of the official birth of NFC came and went quietly on Sept. 5, 2012.

While he announced that U.S. mobile operator Sprint will introduce more than 10 additional NFC phones supporting the Google Wallet this year, Osama Bedier, who heads the wallet program at Google, revealed few other details about how the Web giant plans to boost the wallet’s market presence.

Samsung Electronics has confirmed it has an NFC version of its Galaxy Note, though that comes as no surprise to operators in South Korea, which have been selling the tablet-smartphone hybrid with NFC inside for about two months.

While mobile operators in most other countries are still struggling to roll out even scant volumes of NFC phones that can do payment, ticketing and other applications, South Korea’s telcos have already crossed the 5 million-phone mark–including NFC versions of such high-profile devices as the Samsung Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note.

2012 was going to be the year that the new era of NFC-based mobile commerce had finally arrived–with Google Wallet rolling out widely, mobile operators in the U.S. and Europe making significant inroads with their own mobile wallets and big Asian m-commerce players generally commercializing NFC, as well.

South Korean mobile operator KT Corp. is launching a small rollout of NFC services on Apple’s iPhone 4, using an attachment called iCarte that contains a full NFC chip.

South Korean mobile operator KT Corp. is introducing the Samsung Galaxy S II for NFC payment and other services, a source at KT confirmed to NFC Times.

The major Japanese and South Korean mobile operators in separate announcements today revealed details for planned cross-border NFC services­–signaling the move by the telcos away from domestic contactless-mobile technology to standard NFC.