Sprint Announces Plans To Launch NFC Service In 2011

Sprint Wireless has announced plans to beat AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to the Near Field Communications (NFC) market by adapting their own form of the technology before the end of 2011.

The carriers mentioned above have announced plans to align themselves with the Isis mobile payment system, however Sprint has been working with their own platform with payment networks to offer an NFC-based option of their own.

Sprint originally announced plans to launch their NFC application in 2012 but this week pushed up those plans for an earlier relase among rumors that the iPhone 5 and various other upcoming devices will feature the technology.

According to Sprint officials, customers will be able to receive bills to their regular credit card statements, rather than tacking the bill onto their credit card statements, while the system will take a percentage of each transaction just as Isis does.

Sprint has been running NFC trials since 2007, so it will be interesting to see how their technology compares to the Isis platform.