Analysis: Telcos battle tech, banking titans in mobile payment

Paying for your morning coffee and newspaper by swiping your mobile phone instead of fumbling for cash or debit card could be just around the corner. For telecoms firms like Vodafone and France Telecom, it's the innovation they hope may finally enable them to steal a march on Apple and Google who dominate the mobile market with devices, applications and software.

The telecom companies have suffered for years from the "dumb-pipe" phenomenon whereby operators spend billions building the networks on which data travels, only to watch Google and Apple pocket the profits as smartphone and tablet computer users download millions of applications and ring up transactions. Eye-watering amounts of money are at stake in this new market -- it is estimated at $1.13 trillion globally by IE Market Research. One in every six phones will be equipped with the new technology by 2014, according to Jupiter Research. But to succeed, the telecoms operators will also have to take on credit card giants Visa and MasterCard, who are pushing the technology hard as a way to boost transactions and fees.