DoCoMo goes SUICA

NTT DoCoMo and JR East have announced a basic agreement to discuss joint development and management of common infrastructure for the JR East's SUICA Card and DoCoMo's "Wallet Phone" (an IC card integrated into the upcoming handsets which includes credit card function). Both are based on the FeliCa technology, and cooperation between DoCoMo, JR East and FeliCa owner Sony were announced earlier this year.



Up to now, some DoCoMo handsets contained a IC Card that could only be used as a cashcard and was based on a different and incompatible technology (Edy). Does this mean that DoCoMo plans to abandon the system in favour of SUICA because of its far higher penetration rate? A SUICA compatible mobile would surely be a customer magnet, as it could function as a train pass/ticket, cashcard and credit card.