Isis is more like "Is-not" in trial cities Salt Lake City, Utah and Austin, Texas. The NFC mobile payment system backed by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile was supposed to roll out to these two locations by the end of the summer, but it is now delayed.
Saying that there's no one reason for the delay, Isis head of marketing Jaymee Johnson told FierceMobileContent, "I would characterize where we are as checking items off the punch list."
That checklist doesn't come with a definitive finish date, however. Johnson only said that the carrier-backed NFC venture will have more updates in October.
Despite the delay, Johnson still made the case for Isis as a leading point-of-sale contender. Hundreds of merchants in Salt Lake City and Austin are ready for the mobile wallet system to launch, he told FierceMobileContent.
Likewise, Isis has four leading payment networks waiting to go on the other end: JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, American Express and BarclayCard, according to its website.
Isis compatible with 'Big Red' and T-Mobile
Naturally, the Isis mobile wallet app will be compatible with yet-to-be-announced Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile devices.
Sprint, not surprisingly, is the only major U.S. carrier missing from the "Isis Ready" carrier list, as it's not part of the joint venture.
Ensuring your mobile payments aren't available to everyone (i.e. thieves), Isis boasts a Wallet PIN for security and allows you to remotely suspend your account if your phone is stolen.
All of these features are available from Isis' NFC competition, Google Wallet, which launched one year ago this month. But the carrier-backed mobile payment system has time; Apple didn't jump on the NFC bandwagon with the iPhone 5 announcement.
