Since early last year Google has been working on Direct Carrier Billing for Android Market purchases. Simply put you can purchase an app in the android market and charge it right to your carrier account. T-Mobile and AT&T already have this feature, and now Sprint is also joining the party.
After reading around on the Android Developer Blog, Google also mentioned the same Direct Carrier Billing is now coming to Japan, our very own writer ewdi is over there and will be trying it out when he can. The developer blog went on mentioning that they’ve recently launched Direct Carrier Billing to users on three popular networks in Japan — SoftBank, KDDI, and NTT DOCOMO.
So with all that, T-Mobile, AT&T, and now Sprint, it looks like carrier billing is well on its way to being a normal thing for Android. This is good news, and a key piece of Android’s Marketplace. With many places not having access to credit cards, and many other reasons, carrier billing is the future of app purchases. Stay tuned as more partners will be announced soon.
[via Android Developers Blog]
