Sprint Nextel Corp. is offering customers a wireless payment processing application from Pipeline Data Inc. of Quincy, Mass.
Pipeline Data said Wednesday that the wireless carrier has installed the Aircharge Bluetooth software on its Sprint Mobile Broadband and Nextel National networks.
The software lets consumers use portable card readers that are linked to mobile phones through the Bluetooth short-range, wireless communication format.
The Bluetooth format is widely used for other mobile phone peripheral devices, such as wireless earpieces.
Users who download the Aircharge payment processing software to their phones can use the wireless readers to accept card payments. The transaction information is sent across the Sprint networks for authorization.
Pipeline Data said the application would appeal to taxi drivers, plumbers, contractors, people who sell goods at flea markets, and other small merchants who work in areas without established communications or who are often on the go.
"The Aircharge solution allows Sprint's business customers to process payments wherever and whenever they need to," Tom Moore, Sprint's director of mobile business applications, said in a Pipeline Data press release.
