planning to invest upwards of
US$100 million in their mobile payments joint venture, people with knowledge of
the project have told Bloomberg News.
The Isis joint venture is owned by Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile
USA.
The mobile networks may invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the venture
-- but only if it gains subscribers -- in an attempt to catch up with the mobile
wallet platform unveiled by Google earlier this year.
Isis aims to bring mobile commerce to consumers and merchants by allowing
them to use mobile phones to make point-of-purchase sales through the use of
near-field communication (NFC) technology.
Earlier this year, Isis announced Salt Lake City, Utah and Austin, Texas as
initial launch markets, slated to roll out in the first half of 2012 with
support from all four payment networks.