'Oyster phone' trial goes live

NFC-enabled phones have other uses too. For example, they could be used to retrieve information on promotional offers from RFID-bearing posters. The handsets being trialled will also be able to grant access to the "blueroom" VIP lounge at entertainment venue The O2, formerly the Millennium Dome.

The trial will involve 500 O2 customers who are also Oyster-card users. Each user will be given a Nokia 6131 NFC handset preloaded with £200 credit, which they can use as they wish. However, only a subset of those users will have wave-and-pay functionality.

The phone's credit can be topped up at any of the thousands of Oyster-accepting ticket machines and counters across London. However, no functionality is currently being tested which would allow credit to be topped up over the mobile network. The phone network can be used to check available credit though, and can also help users locate their closest retail outlets which accept wave and pay.

Users of the handset will — at least during the trial period — have to carry around authorisation cards to show to ticket inspectors, to prove that their phones are indeed Oyster cards of a sort.