Brief Discussion on Mobile Payment

Mobile Payment is also known as Mobile Wallet. It is a new way for people to pay the products or service with their mobile devices. Starting from cellphone SMS payment and cellphone WAP payment to recently NFC and remote payment, Mobile Payment becomes more and more advanced. NFC is always understood commonly as mobile card service, which is promoted widely by operators. And remote payment needs payment software in your phone to complete the whole process of the payment and transfer money.

NFC, shorten from Near Field Communication, is a wireless tech first developed by Philips and promoted by Nokia and other large cellphone manufacturers. NFC can exchange data between compatible devices in short distance. It is integrated from radio frequency identification and interconnection technology, combining proximity, contactless card and point-to-point function in a single chip. If you put a NFC chip in your cellphone, it can pay small amont of electronic payment and read info from other NFC devices or label. The short distance interconnection of NFC simplifies the process of certification and identification and makes the visit between two devices more directly, clearly and safely. Because of NFC, mobile phone, computer, camera and PDA can connect each other wireless and exchange data. At the beginning, NFC is only the combination of RFID and web technology. But now, it is becomes a fast developping short distance wireless communication technology.

There are two exchange model of NFC supported devices, active and passive. Under the active model, when one device is sending data to the other device, they must produce their own RF. Both original and the target device must have their own RF in order to exchange data. This is the standard model of peer to peer network communication and it can receive the link setting fastly. While, nowadays, most mobile devices use passive model, because it requires low power and it can longten the battery life.

Under the passive model, the device with NFC provides the RF in the whole communication process with 3 options: 106kbps, 212kbps and 424kbps, to transfer the data to the other device. The other device is the target device does not need to produce RF. With load modulation technology, it can transfer the data back to the original device with the same speed. So under the passive model, the NFC original device can test smart card and NFC target device with the same link and initialization process, and bulid connection with it.

RFID's full name is Radio Frequency Identification. It is a kind of non-contact auto identification technology. It can identify a target through radio signals and read the info without mechanical or optical contact between the target and identification system. It can work in kinds of harsh environment and without manual intervention. It can identify high speed object and identify multi-labels. We can find RFID tech around us easily, such as some RFID chip buildin tickets and so on.

A safe GPRS mobile payment system based on RFID is made up by 5 parts, mobile device, communication network, mobile security trading system, bank and application service provider and certification center. In this article, I just take cellphone as example. It includes RFID label, mobile phone with JAVA mobile payment software and POS that can read RFID. Among those, RFID card and RFID POS is the sub-system of RFID. RFID POS reads the user's info through RFID tech, and connects mobile payment system with PSTN, GPRS and so on. Mobile phone users use JAVA mobile payment software to exchange data with mobile payment system with GPRS and complete the payment.

Let's just take an example. One day, we can take a cellphone with RFID SIM card to buy a breakfirst at McDonald's with your phone, and then you can take subway or bus without paying cash. And when you are at some place that support RFID, you can buy electronic ticket with your phone and in that pace you can also buy food and drink with your cellphone. That's only a preview of the RFID payment in your life. It will have a bright future.