Nokia and the New York MTA team up to bring NFC ticketing to the subway

If you’ve ever purchased a train ticket you know that the process usually involves standing in line, fumbling for payment, and more often then not, attempting to extract your tickets and receipt while they are still printing because your train is about to leave. Nokia and the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) are looking to bring that process into this century for its rain commuters by offering ticking through near field communication, or NFC, phones.

At the annual Nokia World event last week, Nokia announced that it has signed a deal with the MTA that will enable it to test NFC ticketing this year and be able to offer NFC payments in early 2012. Initial tests will occur with the Nokia 603, which will receive a NFC card emulation update to enable secure mobile payments. After testing on the 603 is complete, future Symbian-based devices will be launched with native support for this technology.

Nokia is getting customers used to NFC technology by using it for in-game promotions, such as touching it to a toy to give the user additional levels or characters for their cell phone games. Nokia has also used the technology to enhance services its customers already use, such as check-in markers that integrate with Foursquare. Nokia hopes that once consumers are educated about and have access to NFC, they will begin to discover expanded uses for NFC.

This announcement currently only applies to Symbian devices from the handset manufacturer, but with Microsoft’s recent pledge to add NFC support to its Windows Phones in 2012, we can only speculate (and hope) that Nokia will eventually offer NFC support into its entire smartphone lineup.

source: NFCWorld via AllAboutSymbian