MONTE CARLO, Monaco — A technology that has the potential to replace money is bound to excite interest. Near Field Communications (NFC) is such a technology, but the security, software complexity and vested interests surrounding the hardware engineering have kept the technology from making its way into commercial applications—until now.
According to delegates at an upbeat European NFC Developers Congress here recently, the market could take off in 2009, while others have cautioned that 2010 is more realistic.
NFC has been coming for several years, awaiting standards blighted by conflicts of interest between mobile phone operators, the banking and payment-processing community, and handset and SIM card makers. The reason is straightforward: NFC is touted as a payment method, and at least two stakeholders-the banks and the phone operators-have each expected to be in control and been wary of others who want to be.
But last week's conference suggested that things are moving forward, provided chip manufacturers such as NXP, STMicroelectronics and Inside Contactless can produce enough chips to satisfy phone makers and others.
Last year's event attracted about 100 delegates, while last week 400 attendees registered for both technology and business tracks. And a design competition organized by the NFC Forum special interest group presented applications for NFC other than the oft-mentioned mobile payment, public transportation and ticketing.
The numbers speak for themselves, as does the enthusiasm seen here, on the back of solid progress in standardization and successful field trials," Gerhard Romen, vice chairman of the Forum and head of NFC market development at Nokia, told EE Times. "NFC is a great technology, but it is sometimes hard work to make it all work together, kick it into shape, and prove just how easy it could be."
Romen said the Single Wire Protocol standard was finalized a few weeks ago and the definition of the Host Control Interface that sits within the management layers between the SIM platform and an applications processor is almost complete. "There are also phones under development in addition to the couple of models available from Nokia. So it is happening. Now we need the chips to be available in volumes," he said.
