France Telecom SA’s mobile e-commerce service Iti Achat, promised in February, is up and running on a two-month trial, offering customers of France Telecom’s Itineris GSM cellular network the opportunity to purchase goods and services from five vendors. Iti Achat brings together Motorola’s StarTAC-D handset, De La Rue’s Sim Toolkit and Carte Bancaires’ smartcard. Users inform a retailer of their intended purchase, the price is flashed up on-screen, the user inserts the smartcard into the De la Rue reader, keys in a password and completes the transaction. The message is encrypted using the DES encryption standard and transmitted using the ShortMessage System (SMS) protocol. France Telecom plans another trial before starting commercial operations in about six months.
