Citigroup, MasterCard Worldwide, Cingular Wireless and Nokia today announced a consumer technology trial of Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled mobile phones with MasterCard PayPass(TM) contactless payment capability in New York City. The goal of this trial is to evaluate the speed and convenience that “tap and go” payments made through mobile phones can provide to Citi credit cards and Cingular customers in the New York City area. The trial is expected to run three to six months.

Pre-selected Citi MasterCard cardholders with Cingular Wireless accounts are participating in the trial and will receive Nokia NFC-enabled mobile phones with MasterCard PayPass payment functionality. MasterCard PayPass is a “contactless” payment program that provides consumers with a fast and convenient way to pay.

With their NFC-enabled phone, trial participants can pay for purchases at any merchant that accepts MasterCard PayPass by simply holding their phone near a secure PayPass payment terminal. If they choose, participants will be permitted to enable the PayPass functionality only at the point of sale and to disable it at all other times. The contactless payment transaction is automatically charged to the user through the same secure MasterCard payment network that processes traditional credit card transactions.

Source: The 3G Portal - 3G News, 3G Opinion and 3G Analysis

There is news around that Cingular is going to hike SMS price to 15 cents per message from its current 10 cents per message.

There’s word out that Cingular is changing its per text-message fee from 10 cents to 15 cents starting late January. This site says¹:

Effective January 21, 2007, the pay-per-use pricing for SMS and IM will increase to $0.15/msg. This will affect all postpaid and Pick Your Plan customers who do not currently subscribe to an SMS package. . . Notification will be in the December bill and in [an] SMS sent to Pick Your Plan customers.

Source: GigaOM » Cingular To Boost Text Rate?

Rob Greenlee points to a couple of articles that discuss about Cellcasts and Mobilcasts. Question simply put, Do you want to listen to streaming music or downloaded music on your cellphone?

Here is an article that talks about “Cellcasts“.

I also found another more recent article talking about The Coming Age of the “Cellcast” or “Mobilcast” : Resource Shelf blog.

Few Resources on Cellcasts from  Resource Shelf blog:

+ UpSnap
This mobile service (http://wap.upsnap.com) offers a number of features and is one that we’ve mentioned on ResourceShelf for several years as a mobile portal. They provide several free features (local directory search, sports scores, price comparison info and more) along with audio content. They also a number of podcast and other types of audio programming. UpSnap delivers the audio material over the plain old telephone system (U.S. phone numbers). After you select the program, you’re given a phone number to dial and the program begins playing. UpSnap also offers SMS access.

+ Pod2Mob
Stream to your mobile, thousands of podcasts. Select from various formats (.m3u,.pls.,ram,.asx). Stream direct from the WAP site or use a Java client (will not work with Treo’s).
++ Directory of podcasts
Sample entry. Note: It’s also possible to download the cast.
Producers can submit their podcast for inclusion.

+ Melodeo
++ Once on the page, click the “Mobile” link
++ Offers both a podcast directory and a mobile service (Mobilcast)
++ Requires app download (does not work for Treo’s or Blackberry’s at this time)
++ Works on Nextel, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile networks as well as Rogers, Cingular, and AllTell.
++ MoboFlix is a new service allowing users to upload video content directly from their phones. The new AOL UnCut service (free) also provides this feature.

+ Radio4PDA (aka Tuned.mobi)
This is a site that we use on a very regular basis. The editors of this page have created an impressive directory
of mainstream radio stations in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Ireland and created direct links to the URL where they stream their audio from. A real time saver. Those of you who have devices that can play Windows MP3 files, some Real content, and steaming MP3 (Shoutcast) will want to take a look here. Impressive!!!

+ Podlinez
Simply enter the url of any podcast and within minutes a phone number is provided to dial-in and listen to the program. Similar to UpSnap.
A directory of podcasts is also available.

If your favorite podcast isn’t already in our directory, you can add it immediately and it’ll be available to call within minutes.

See Also: Review: Melodeo Mobilcast (via PC Magazine)

See Also: MobiTv offers streaming video from CNBC, MSNBC, Discovery and other networks for smartphones. Fee-based.

See Also: A local Fox tv station in Albany, NY offers a “cellcast.” Fee-basedi

See Also: The term “cellcast” has been bouncing around since the Spring. We first found it used in an article by Olga Kharif in TechNewsWorld. Kharif also wrote a related article for BusinessWeek.

Source: Mobile Phone Podcast Blog: Cellcast vs. Mobilcast Which is Best?- Podcast News, Listening, Discovery and Creation Trends - Melodeo, Mobilcast and Mobilcasting