NEC, Mos Burger Demo In-Car Payments
Japan's NEC Corp, and Mos Burger, are testing cashless payments at a drive-through retail outlet in Enoshima, in which customers can pay for food and drinks, via on-board car navigation systems. The system, similar to the short-range technology used in electronic toll collection systems at expressway toll gates, uses an antenna mounted on the vehicle, to interact with an in-vehicle PC system, and a smart card reader. When the vehicle approaches the drive-through outlet, the store's ordering menu appears on the in-car navigation system, and the customer's purchase request is authenticated with a smart card.NEC plans to commercialize the system from 2003, when on-board car navigation systems become commonplace. The solution runs on DSRC, the Electronic Industries Association transmission standard, the speed of which was restricted to 128 kbps for this demonstration, instead of its capacity of 1Mbps, due to running on Internet-based networks. When the DSRC system is commercialized, NEC envisions a transmission rate of 384 kbps, but because ETC (the standard for in-car telematics) does not support the Internet protocol, TCP/IP, NEC will have to standardize
For this reason, NEC is aware of the potential for mobile phone-based payment systems, betting that if customers could order and pay remotely, and collect their goods on reaching the store, the need to drive to the store, and then wait in line, would be removed. NEC's objective is ultimately to promote the usage of DSRC-based communication infrastructures, but to achieve this objective, the firm will have to devise services that can only be delivered via DSRC. Related Links
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