13-02-2013, 04:52 PM
Is Near-Field Communication Close to Success?
1Near-Field Communication .pdf (Size: 530.37 KB / Downloads: 23)
Asports fan attending a
game breezes through the
front gate, paying for his
ticket by waving his cell
phone near a point-of-sale
reader. On the way to his seat, he
downloads wallpaper to his handset
by touching it to a poster of his
favorite player. And after the game,
he pays for fast food at another POS
reader by using electronic coupons
stored in his phone.
These transactions are part of the
promise behind near-field communication
(NFC), a new wireless technology
that could unite various
standards and proprietary technologies
found in the millions of standalone
contactless cards. Contactless
technology lets users pay for transactions
by simply holding cards
close to, rather than swiping them
through, a reader.
NFC is a short-range wireless
technology that lets devices communicate
when in close proximity. The
technology allows for the development
of devices, including mobile
phones, that can be used like contactless
cards.
A shorter transmission range and
slower data rates distinguish NFC
from other short-range wireless technologies
such as Bluetooth, radiofrequency
identification (RFID), and
Wi-Fi.
CLOSE LOOK AT NFC
NFC was jointly developed by
Philips and Sony in late 2002 for contactless
communications. Europe’s
Ecma International adopted the technology
as a standard in December
2002. The International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) and
the International Electrotechnical
Commission adopted it in December
2003.
In 2004, Nokia, Philips, and Sony
founded the NFC Forum to promote
the technology.
How it works
In NFC, a device generates a lowfrequency
radio-wave field in the
13.56-MHz spectrum. When another
NFC device gets close enough
to contact the field, magnetic inductive
coupling transfers energy and
data from one device to the other.
The use of magnetic coupling is a
principal difference between NFC
and technologies such as Bluetooth
and Wi-Fi.
An NFC device with an internal
power supply is considered active. A
device with no internal power supply,
such as a smart card, is considered
passive. Inductive coupling
causes a passive device to absorb energy
from an active device when it
gets close enough. Once powered
up, the passive device can communicate
and exchange data with the
other device.
Growing its popularity
Vendors—such as Motorola,
Nokia, Philips, and ViVOtech—
make money from NFC by selling
chips to device makers, by selling enabled
phones and PDAs to cellular
service providers or directly to users,
and by selling NFC readers to businesses,
explained Juniper Research
analyst Alan Goode.
Businesses benefit by increasing
throughput at each POS, reducing
wear and tear on terminals, and providing
simplicity and security that
could generate more customer expenditures,
said inCode’s Irwin.
According to Irwin, adding functions
to a cell phone is attractive to
consumers who want to reduce the
number of devices they carry.