What is NFC?
Near Field Communication (NFC) technology makes life easier and more convenient for consumers around the world by making it simpler to make transactions, exchange digital content, and connect electronic devices with a touch.
- Access control
- Consumer electronics
- Healthcare
- Information collection and exchange
- Loyalty and coupons
- Payments
- Transport
Key Benefits of NFC
NFC provides a range of benefits to consumers and businesses, such as:- Intuitive: NFC interactions require no more than a simple touch
- Versatile: NFC is ideally suited to the broadest range of industries, environments, and uses
- Open and standards-based: The underlying layers of NFC technology follow universally implemented ISO, ECMA, and ETSI standards
- Technology-enabling: NFC facilitates fast and simple setup of wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.)
- Inherently secure: NFC transmissions are short range (from a touch to a few centimeters)
- Interoperable: NFC works with existing contactless card technologies
- Security-ready: NFC has built-in capabilities to support secure applications
The Near Field Communication Forum (http://www.nfc-forum.org/home) was set up in 2004. It is an industrial no profit association with the aim to standardize, implement and promote the NFC technology. Today the Forum has more then 160 members and is made up of manufacturing firms of developers and financial institutes. In august 2006 it issued the first four official specifications that relate to four initial format tags.
From the technical point of view NFC technology is an extension of ISO 1443 (which defines the standard of RFID tag Mifare at 13,56 Mhz) and both of ECMA and ETSI standard, it combines the integration of one smart card with one device or terminal. All NFC devices allow the reading and writing of information of high speed (424 Kbis/s). NFC connection happens when, so to say, they make a wireless connection which is compatible with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Since the way of function is highly limited it guarantees safe communication avoiding "sniffing" data.
One NFC device can communicate either with already present readers and cards ISO 1443 as well as with other NFC devices. So it is already compatible with the existing infrastructures RFID for payments and public transport. The NFC integration into cell phones and multimedia readers is already being tested, as the iPod can be, which enables buying and transferring of multimedia material.
The first concrete case of investments and NFC applications is delivered by Nokia, the leader firm for the communication in mobility products. Nokia has trusted in NFC technology from the very beginning. On the 22 last April, at the opening WIMA (www.wima-nfc.com) – the annual conference on commercial possibilities and NFC technology development held in Monaco– Nokia presented its third mobile cell phone with NFC technology completely integrated into Nokia 6216 classic.
For the first time such a technology was integrated into the SIM card allowing the cell phone operators to insert NFC services directly into the card itself. Thanks to such a technology costumers will be able to exchange between themselves the contents like pictures, files and data, in a more simple and comfortable way. Besides, NFC technology introduces payments and RFID transactions- all these with a simple touch of cell phone.
For example, the users' credit card information may be safely kept on SIM card and it will be only enough to pass over the mobile device with the users' hand in front of RFID terminal in order to access quickly to paying and other simple ticketing services.
Commercializing of Nokia 6216 classic is meant for the last quarter of this year on selected markets including Italy with the selling price of € 150. Taxes and subventions are excluded.
In the last edition of Cartes in Paris (www.cartes.com) – the Fair related to the card technology and the payment systems- the NFC adhesives were presented on that occasion and will be available on markets from 2009. The adhesive is meant for the phones markets to promote massive usage of technology. The adhesive has an antenna, RFID chip and a ferrite layer to protect it from electromagnetic fields. To be able use the NFC it is enough to stick the adhesive onto the cell phone battery.
A market research done by the Internet has shown that two or three interviewed persons would prefer paying directly by cell phone to carrying a wallet or coin purse with themselves. Apart from this, a paying through RFID technology is more practical then by cards- which you have to scrape or they have a little visible chip- simply to say, they often make confusion at paying.
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