Understanding why NFC is more than contactless, Bluetooth, or RFID …

Certainly among the hottest of topics in the ID world today is Near Field Communication (NFC), an exciting and relatively new technology. While it has become a household term in most identification-centric circles, a significant gap in understanding of its technical operations and capabilities remains. Ask a number of people to define NFC, and you are likely to get responses like: ‘It’s a way to make payments with your mobile phone’ … ‘It’s contactless but it can go in a other devices’ … ‘Its like Bluetooth but it is in a card.” While each of these descriptions are accurate to a degree, they fail to capture the true understanding of what sets NFC apart from other technologies.

With trials occurring at a fevered pace, NFC is being tested for real world use

USA: Cellular South and Kyocera Wireless conduct NFC payment trial of “Wireless Wallet” with consumers in Memphis, TN and Jackson, MS. End date: August 2007.

The Netherlands: Roda Stadium trials NFC phones for football ticketing and payment with KPN, Philips, Bell ID, SmartPoint. Dates: Aug 2005-May 2006

Taiwan: MasterCard, Taipei Fubon Bank, Taiwan Mobile, and Vivotech deploy NFC pilot in Taiwan for payment and couponing via smart posters. Start date: February 2007.

By Andy Williams, Contributing Editor

Every time you turn around you see an NFC pilot program cropping up somewhere in the world. What you haven’t seen are many full-scale commercial rollouts. In fact, those could be counted on one hand. Sure, near field communication technology is still relatively new–but in a world where new innovations quickly become yesterday’s news, could NFC be starting to show its age?

Near field communication is still, technically, in its infancy, but it’s gaining a good head of steam as illustrated by this year’s edition of CardTech / SecurTech event. The show is being held May 15-17 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Bill Rutledge, CTST program director, projects a 15% increase in attendance over 2006 figures for the SourceMedia Conferences and Exhibitions event.

Convenience continues to be redefined when it comes to contactless payments. The latest innovation: Using wireless readers/terminals to take–and pay for-concession orders at a group of Broadway theaters in New York City.

Sandbar Concessions is one of the leading in-theater refreshment services companies on Broadway. The company is concessionaire for The Nederlander Organization, which serves the Brooks Atkinson, Gershwin, Lunt-Fontanne, Marquis, Minskoff, Nederlander, Neil Simon and Richard Rodgers theaters. It is also the first refreshment service company to accept Visa credit, debit and, now, contactless payments.

How a car looks and performs (and of course, its cost) will still be the major criteria in the auto purchasing decision. But the “coolness” factor may be entering the equation thanks to RFID and Near Field Communication (NFC) technology that’s eliminating the need for a key and offering up other technological wonders.

Smart keys have been around since the end of the last century, but with improvements in RFID and the new kid on the block, NFC, more sophisticated technology is making the driving experience, well, more enjoyable.

By Andy Williams, Contributing Editor

NFC may still be an industry buzzword despite numerous pilots and at least one commercial implementation in Germany. But, according to NFC pundits from NXP and Nokia, that’s the plan. Get the industry involved and John Q. Public will follow.

“NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors) has achieved significant industry awareness about NFC since its introduction as a new technology back in 2003,” said NXP’s Taoufik Ghanname, marketing manager, Near Field Communication, Consumer and Multimedia (Philips Semiconductors was one of the NFC developers).