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For all of the cutting edge mobile technology that Japanese consumers have routine access to, surprisingly little of it has made its way outside of the country. Its government, however, wants to change this, and will begin an "aggressive push" to market the technology overseas, reports AP . One of the big questions, however, is how much of the country's technology can be exported. In Japan, it's common to have high-speed access to the web, to watch and record TV broadcasts, and to pay using a mobile phone. But as Masayuki Ito, official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications acknowledged, "Some critics say Japanese mobile technology tends to be quirky like the Galapagos Islands," that is, the country's isolation has given it very domestic-specific technology. One of the products Japan hopes to flog is the technology behind the FeliCa wallet phone, which debuted in 2004, and is now a standard feature in most Japanese handsets. Instead of a smart card, which is how most popular mobile phone payments work in Europe, a tiny chip called FeliCa, partly developed by Sony Corp ( NYSE: SNE ). is embedded into the phone. Some analysts believe, however, that the success of mobile payments in Japan is down to low credit card use in the country, as well as the popularity of convenience stores and vending machines. Still, there's little choice for Japanese carriers and manufacturers, who are backing the government initiative. The new campaign comes at a time when the saturated domestic handset market has begun to decline , hurt by carriers who have cut phone subsidies in favor of lower tariffs and better service, and by increasing consumer fatigue over more complex technology. Related Japan's Handset Market Drops 20 Percent; Advanced Features Hit Saturation Point? Lost In Translation: Japanese Market Not Sold On iPhone Cool Factor Japan To License Cellphone Experts Check out the best business jobs in digital media. Go here for...

European Union banks and mobile operators have agreed to work together on mobile payments. Mobile industry group, the GSM Association, and the European Payments Council, have already begun trials for contactless mobile payments, with seven operators conducting mobile payment trials, and another seven tests to start soon. Reuters report s that the goal of the cooperation is to create more competition and choice in the way that people in the EU pay for things, and to reduce the cost of paying for something while travelling outside of one's home state. Operators are said to be keen on mobile payments as a source of new revenues. The EU, meanwhile, would eventually like to see an EU standard on wireless payments agreed upon. Our mobile application for Blackberry and other Smartphones brings you the latest headlines when you're on the go. Go here to download .

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Alltel ( NYSE: AT ) accusing the carrier of "systematically, repeatedly and without authorization, billing its customers for purchases and services not agreed to by those customers" reports RCR News . "Alltel's decision to continue to charge its customers for mobile content without taking steps to authenticate the representations of the mobile content providers that the customer's authority to be charged was obtained constitutes a deliberate and willful scheme to cheat large numbers of people out of small amounts of money," the plaintiff stated. Alltel has declined to comment on the specific charges. There are no details given on the particular billing situation being sued about, but the general issue of third party billing has been around for a while, particularly tricking people into signing up for expensive content subscriptions by offering "free" content. AT&T was fined by the Florida AG last month over the issue. Nevertheless, if telcos are held responsible for the actions of third party vendors and the failure of people to read the fine print a fine line will have to be walked. I'm not sure what kind of authentication the plaintiff would require, but if the telco had to check with the consumer every time the system would fall apart the same way credit card payments wouldn't work if banks had to call customers each time they tried to use one. Here's hoping the courts can solve what is a pretty serious problem without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Related AT&T Mobility To Pay $2.5M To Florida AG For Faulty Ringtone Billing; $10M-$45M in User Refunds Buongiorno Responds To The Florida AG Lawsuit Lawsuits Allege SMS Voting Is An Illegal Lottery

San Francisco train system BART has launched a mobile payment trial with Sprint ( NYSE: S ) where 230 trial participants can pay for a ticket by tagging their phone on a reader at the gate—the credit is topped up automatically over the air. The trial also includes Jack in the Box , which will have advertisements with directions to the nearest Jack in the Box restaurant and discount vouchers. Sprint will also have ads with content available for download...I'm guessing this could increase the value of ads in the BART system. The trial uses Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. ( release ) Meanwhile, in the Philippines Globe Telecom and Western Union have teamed up to introduce a cross-border mobile money transfer service supporting low-principal, high-frequency remittances. Globe Telecom already has almost half a million (of its 19 million subscriber base) active users of its GCASH service, which lets people send and receive cash and make payments. ( release )