"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message . com, at
06:58:50 on Fri, 3 Aug 2007, W14_Fishbourne
remarked:
The second technology will be to use a chip inside your mobile phone
which will take the place of (and remove the need for) a separate
piece of plastic called a smartcard. You will wave your phone over a
smartcard reader on the gateline in the same way that you wave a
smartcard. It doesn't matter if your battery goes flat during the
journey - the power to read the chip comes from the reader (just as
you don't have a battery in your Oyster card).

Does this mean you have to buy a new phone,

Almost certainly, Yes

or is the RFID embedded in a new SIM (there was mention of Orange and SIMs
earlier).

I'm still struggling to understand why this is so much better than having
the same chip in a bit of plastic in your wallet (I go out without a phone
more often than without a wallet) and thread convergence if you are
using a Railcard, you need to be carrying your wallet anyway!

Because it's a solution looking for a problem. The mobile
phone companies are always looking at ways of making
extra money and this "(not so) micro payment using your
phone" is the next idea that they are trying to sell.

It seems that they have managed to sell the idea to a rail
company to help them market it.

But ISTM that none of the previous attempts to sell
electronic micro payments have been accepted by the
population, it will surprise me if this one is any different.

tim