As someone who uses a mobile phone equipped with a FeliCa IC chip every day for the trains, food, shopping and entertainment I'm yet to figure out how anyone directly makes money from it.
I charge in increments of 1,2,5 or Y10(,000) - (That's about $100USD for those of you playing at home), and that's exactally what I get.
There's no 'taxes' or 'fees', the service is completely free. I assume the profit goes to the provider (DoCoMo) in sales of handsets boasting 'equipped with IC', and then some to retailers who supply the hardware to use it at their stores on the idea that people will buy more with their Mobile Wallet rather than using real cash.
As for these cards it seems rediculous to buy a card each time to want to charge up. I would imagine that you would be able to 'charge' your card atleast somehow. you'd probably have to do this dodgily online with serial numbers as the cards would have limited~no credit communication between the handset. This ofcourse means that the only way of checking your balance would probably be to go to some WAP site etc.
The more I think about this the worse the idea sounds. Well lets just hope they do it (if they actually -do- do it) well. End rant.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
As someone who uses a mobile phone equipped with a FeliCa IC chip every day for the trains, food, shopping and entertainment I'm yet to figure out how anyone directly makes money from it.
I charge in increments of 1,2,5 or Y10(,000) - (That's about $100USD for those of you playing at home), and that's exactally what I get.
There's no 'taxes' or 'fees', the service is completely free. I assume the profit goes to the provider (DoCoMo) in sales of handsets boasting 'equipped with IC', and then some to retailers who supply the hardware to use it at their stores on the idea that people will buy more with their Mobile Wallet rather than using real cash.
As for these cards it seems rediculous to buy a card each time to want to charge up. I would imagine that you would be able to 'charge' your card atleast somehow. you'd probably have to do this dodgily online with serial numbers as the cards would have limited~no credit communication between the handset. This ofcourse means that the only way of checking your balance would probably be to go to some WAP site etc.
The more I think about this the worse the idea sounds. Well lets just hope they do it (if they actually -do- do it) well. End rant.