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The Role of Standards in NFC

How many standards bodies does it take to lay solid foundations for a new technology? In the process of researching content for a paper on Near Field Communication (NFC) – specifically, the role of Trusted Services Managers (TSMs) – for the Smart Mobility conference, I’ve been side tracked a little by this important issue.

Standards and technology go hand in hand. As the recently retired Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation, Dr Craig R. Barrett succinctly stated:

"When we were all nation states, independent of each other, with our own borders and internal rules and regulations, each nation could have its own technology standards. But the world is getting smaller on a daily basis. By smaller, I mean that hardware, software and content move, and they move independent of, and irrespective of, international boundaries. As that trend continues, the need to have commonality and interoperability between devices grows."

This couldn’t be truer for NFC.  So while I was discussing the adoption of this technology with Andras Vilmos of StoLPan – a pan-European consortium supported by the European Commission's IST program – I was interested when he told me that a lack of standards has played a role in slowing down the adoption of NFC in Europe and that a specific goal for StoLPan is to help close the gap in the current specifications.

I found it interesting because I am aware of several initiatives that have NFC and interoperability as their goal. Not least the AFSCM - a French association for contactless mobile that recently announced that it  "has published its specifications to facilitate the quick launch of mobile contactless services and enable the development of interoperable mobile contactless products and services". It is specifically French – which would disappoint Barrett. As would a similar UK initiative, which doesn’t have the formal public profile that the AFSCM has, but is an organised group of companies setting some specific ground rules – for national adoption.

Then of course there’s the NFC Forum itself, with targeted working groups that cover everything from technical specifications to brand marks and acceptance logos. Andras said that "the Forum should play an important role, however competitive issues may slow progress". And I can’t help but agree with him. After 15 years (mainly on the supplier side) in the cards world, I find it hard to believe that organisations that compete fiercely with one another, vying to have their technology adopted as the de facto standard while filing patents,  will openly share approaches and ideas. Andras believes that this challenge will only be overcome when stakeholders realise that without real interoperability NFC will not be able not support large scale commercial services.

Serendipitously the NFC Forum announced the formation of a new working group earlier this week – the Ecosystem Development Working Group to "develop and foster the NFC community". It followed this yesterday with an announcement of a new Implementer membership level, for organisations developing NFC based solutions.  This new group "complements existing NFC Forum membership levels that are primarily targeted at technical specification development".  This statement turned my interest to confusion; existing national and pan European initiatives, comprised largely of implementers and service providers are focussed specifically on developing specifications. While I’m sure it’s true that there’s a slight difference in focus – the NFC Forum is looking at core infrastructure and the other groups have applications front of mind – there is most definitely a cross over that will need to be resolved one way or another.

Tagged with Near Field Communication

0 Comments. Posted by Victoria 07 August 2009

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