About Mobility

In response to @AjitJaokar at ForumOxford, I’ve updated my page on NFC to further explain NFC vs. RFID as well as the elements of a Java-based NFC mobile application; see NFC/Touch Page.

“RFID” is a broad term that refers to Radio frequency ID. But not all RFIDs are created equal with differences in range and frequencies, and some are in fact proprietary. But there are number of main standards out there, for example FeliCa (made by Sony and very popular in Japan) and MIFARE (made by NXP and very popular in transportation and elsewhere) with tons of deployments. The Oyster card is based on MIFARE for example.
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The following diagram shows on An Exploration of the NFC-related Elements on Mobile Handsets (click to enlarge):

Read the rest at the NFC/Touch Page.

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Another report that claims big numbers; this time by Juniper Research — see NFC Mobile Payments to Reach US$75 Billion by 2013 (via Payment News).

2013, or five years from today, seems about right for the NFC sweet spot (or start of).

But to see that happening, it must begin today. It is not until I see the technology gap closing, that I will believe such numbers. Let’s not confuse potential with reality. NFC has huge potential, including beyond payments; the use cases and merits are there, and people will use it.

But the gap is too extreme today. Show me the NFC phones, where are they? There are next to zero NFC-phones in the U.S. — I am not seeing it happening…

The Juniper Research report says (via Payment News):

2009 will see limited numbers of NFC devices shipped (except in the Far East & China region) but the market will begin to ramp up from 2010 onwards and by 2013 20%, or 1 in 5 phones shipped, will possess NFC capability.

Global annual gross transaction value will grow over 5 times between 2011 and 2013.

The top 3 regions (Far East & China, North America and W. Europe) will represent nearly 90% of the $75bn p.a. market (by gross transaction value) by 2013.

Show me the phones!

Believe me, I can’t wait; when the phones come out for real, I will be one of the first ones with a very interesting solution for it…

…in the meantime, we will continue to see trials after trials after trials. It is time to move-on to the next phase of NFC deployment.

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The GSMA Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative is alive and moving forward w.r.t. NFC standardization, in this case, w.r.t. secure elements for NFC applications.

Developed by the 45 operators globally supporting the GSMA’s Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, the requirements will help handset manufacturers to develop NFC-enabled phones that are compatible with operators’ planned NFC services.

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The requirements build on the standardisation work completed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), which has selected the Single Wire Protocol to provide the interface between the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) — recommended by the GSMA as the Secure Element for NFC applications — and the NFC chipset embedded in the handset.

Pay-Buy-Mobile was announced a year ago at the 2007 GSMA World.

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See my latest article — an introduction to the NFC API for Java…

Near-field Communication (NFC) is characterized as a very short-range radio communication technology with a lot of potential, especially when applied to mobile handsets. Imagine yourself using your cellphone to interact with posters, magazines, and even with products while at the store, and with such interaction initiating a request or search for related information in real-time. Other usages of NFC include the electronic wallet to make payments using your handset, the same way you do with your credit card. With NFC all this is possible. But NFC is still a young technology. That said, NFC-enabled handsets are being introduced into the market, and deployments and pilots around the world are occurring. This article explores NFC and how you can leverage it in your Java application by using the Contactless Communications API.

See An Introduction to Near-Field Communication and the Contactless Communication API (Sun Mobility Website).

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NFC is a technology that not only is being deployed today, but that will be found on mostly every mobile phone in the future. And with this comes security and hacking concerns.

I just found an interesting presentation by Collin Mulliner titled Attacking NFC Mobile Phones (PDF), where Collin introduces and analyzes NFC and different attack methods against NFC-based mobile phones.

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Richard Humbach, Nokia Emerging Business Unit on Mobile payments and banking with NFC (4:51min)

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The NFC Forum has mandated that the four tag types be operable with NFC devices.

The NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) specification and four Record Type Description (RTD) specifications were released in 2006. These specifications are also available for download at www.nfc-forum.org/specs.

The operation specifications for the NFC Forum tag types, numbered 1-4, provide the technical information required to implement the reader/writer and associated control functionality of the NFC device, enabling interaction with the tags. The four tag type specifications are:

• NFC Forum Type 1 Tag Operation Specification - Type 1 tag is based on ISO14443A. Tags are read and re-write capable; users can configure the tag to become read-only. Memory availability is 96 bytes and expandable to 2 kbyte; communication speed is 106 kbit/s.
• NFC Forum Type 2 Tag Operation Specification - Type 2 tag is based on ISO14443A. Tags are read and re-write capable; users can configure the tag to become read-only. Memory availability is 48 bytes and expandable to 2 kbyte; communication speed is 106 kbit/s.
• NFC Forum Type 3 Tag Operation Specification - Type 3 tag is based on the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) X 6319-4, also known as FeliCa. Tags are pre-configured at manufacture to be either read and re-writable, or read-only. Memory availability is variable, theoretical memory limit is 1MByte per service; communication speed is 212 kbit/s or 424 kbit/s.
• NFC Forum Type 4 Tag Operation Specification - Type 4 tag is fully compatible with ISO14443A and B standards. Tags are pre-configured at manufacture to be either read and re-writable, or read-only. Memory availability is variable, up to 32 KBytes per service; communication speed is up to 424 kbit/s.

Related to this see the Touch, Near Field page.

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