In a Wednesday announcement, the Isis consortium - comprising three US wireless carriers, namely, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile - said that the Isis mobile wallet network will be launched on Monday, October 22, in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas.

The date of the launch of Isis mobile wallet network was confirmed by Jaymee Johnson - the marketing head of Isis - in an emailed statement. Johnson also revealed in the statement that the Isis network advantage will be exploited by 20 Isis-ready mobile handsets which will hit the markets by the end of the year.

Johnson also said that all the 20 handsets will also be NFC-ready; and elaborated that he handsets will contain a near field communications (NFC) radio chip, which is capable of communicating with an NFC terminal, to facilitate the users in making payments from their smartphones.

Isis had already disclosed earlier that the mechanism for handling NFC payments will be in place at several retailers, transit providers, and gas stations. The security of the NFC payments will be ensured by the "secure element," which is part of all NFC phones and protects the credit card details of customers.

Meanwhile, though Isis has not given out the list of the 20 Isis-ready handsets, AT&T said in a Wednesday confirmation that that it will offer five Isis-ready handsets, including three Samsung phones - Galaxy S III, Exhilarate, and Rugby Pro - along with the HTC One X, and the LG Espace.