Google & Sprint Gearing Up to Launch NFC Payments Program May 26th?
Get that rumor mill spinnin’, boy! The latest is from Bloomberg who cites three unnamed sources familiar with Google’s plans to unveil a new NFC payments service on May 26th. And I bet you already know which carrier they’re partnering up with here in the United States. Yep, you guessed it – Sprint.
After competitors Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile teamed up with ISIS for NFC payments, Google was left with only one choice out of the 4 biggest carriers. It’ll be an interesting race to watch as Google and Sprint take on what we assume will be a bigger force.
Also interesting is how Google was the one who spear-headed the NFC movement here in the United States but couldn’t seem to grab the interest of three of the nation’s biggest carriers. We’re fairly positive they had mobile payments in mind when introducing the Nexus S and Android 2.3, and we’re fairly positive they wanted many of the US’ providers to be on in it .
It makes us wonder why the other three carriers didn’t opt to join Google or, conversely, why Sprint didn’t opt to join ISIS. They were all obviously contacted by ISIS to get the ball rolling. I can’t imagine ISIS didn’t reach out to Sprint.
Sprint held out and are now joining forces with Google for NFC payments – they must’ve known of Google’s plans at the same time they knew of ISIS’. And just as I can’t imagine ISIS didn’t reach out to Sprint, I can’t imagine Google didn’t reach out to the other big three carriers here in the states.
We’ll never know why the carriers decided to side with who they sided with, but at least all of them are putting their eggs into the NFC basket. We’ll be anticipating details to come on May 26th. Sprint and Google are said to first trial the service in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. [Bloomberg]