PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CARTES SECURE CONNEXIONS EVENT 2013 – The Open Standard for Public Transport (OSPT™) Alliance today announced that Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with 140 million mobile customers, has joined the OSPT Alliance as an Associate Member. Deutsche Telekom is the first mobile network operator to join the alliance, and will work with the other members to help broaden support for the CIPURSE™ open security standard by the ecosystem of mobile operators, enabling it to gain greater acceptance in that market.
“The CIPURSE standard is capable of being applied to a broad range of generic contactless applications, which is exactly what mobile operators like Deutsche Telekom are looking for to support new business opportunities, especially with applications for transport, access control, loyalty and couponing,” said Arnd Gallmann, vice president, terminal technology at Deutsche Telekom. “The proprietary solutions currently on the market are closed and present an obstacle which this industry needs to overcome to achieve broader acceptance of contactless technology in the marketplace. The openness of the CIPURSE standard fits very well with this need.”
According to Gallmann, open standards are central to the future of the telecommunications industry, and in the near future, contactless technology will be an integral part of most mobile devices, creating opportunities for mobile operators to develop new value-added applications and services.
“CIPURSE is based on smart card technology, which fits very well with our more than 20 years experience in this area. It has a mature security concept, which makes it a very promising candidate for a technology platform that can support a broad range of applications,” added Gallmann. “We believe there are ways to enhance the CIPURSE specification to make it even more important and valuable to mobile operators and thus gain greater acceptance in that market and increase the likelihood for adoption. At the same time, we understand the need to avoid overly complex standards, and thus look forward to working with the OSPT community to arrive at a solution everyone is comfortable with and can support.”
The CIPURSE open security standard addresses the need by local and regional transit authorities for future-proof fare collection systems with more advanced security than currently in use. Because it is an open standard, CIPURSE promotes vendor neutrality, cross-vendor system interoperability, lower technology adoption risks, higher quality and improved market responsiveness, all of which result in lower operating costs and greater flexibility for transport system operators.
“Mobile network operators like Deutsche Telekom will play an increasingly important role in the future of public transportation systems and other secure mobile applications, and we hope their membership in the OSPT Alliance will signal our interest in working with this industry to support the CIPURSE standard,” said Laurent Cremer, executive director for the OSPT Alliance. “We welcome Deutsche Telekom and look forward to working with them to help ensure greater acceptance of the CIPURSE standard by the ecosystem of mobile operators.”
Designed as a layered, modular architecture with application-specific profiles, the open and secure CIPURSE V2 standard comprises a single, consistent set of specifications for all security, personalization, administration and life-cycle management functions needed to create a broad range of interoperable transit applications – from inexpensive single-ride or daily paper tickets to rechargeable fixed-count or weekly plastic tickets to longer-term smart card- or smartphone-based commuter tickets that can also support loyalty and other applications.
About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with 140 million mobile customers, over 31 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of September 30, 2013). The Group provides products and services for the fixed network, mobile communications, the Internet and IPTV for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in around 50 countries and has 230,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of EUR 58.2 billion in the 2012 financial year – more than half of it outside Germany (as of December 31, 2012).
About the OSPT Alliance
The OSPT Alliance is an international association chartered to define a new open standard for secure transit fare collection solutions. It provides industry education, creates workgroup opportunities and catalyzes the development and adoption of innovative fare collection technologies, applications and services. The OSPT Alliance was founded by leading technology companies, and membership is open to technology providers, transit operators, consultants, solution vendors, government agencies and other stakeholders in the transit ecosystem. For additional information, please visit www.osptalliance.org.
