Consortium to develop NFC architecture
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A pan European consortium of companies, universities and user groups has been created to develop an open architecture for the development, deployment and use of near field communications (NFC) enabled applications in mobile handsets.
Cofunded by the European Commission (EU), the Store Logistics and Payment with NFC (StoLPaN) project aims to define open commercial and technical frameworks for NFC enabled services on mobile devices.
NFC trials conducted around the world are said to have proved that consumers like the simplicity of using their mobile phone to access and securely pay for entertainment, information and services while on the move.
To address the interoperability issues, various usage cases are to be defined by StoLPaN and tested throughout Europe. These use cases will help to identify a common set of business rules. The results will then be submitted to relevant industry bodies for standardisation.
Consortium members include Motorola, NXP and Sun Microsystems, along with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Budapest Tech John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics.
“With NFC enabled mobile devices, you should soon be able to provide a variety of services, based on either the contactless interface or over the air download, replacing the need for physical credit, loyalty, bank or transportation cards,” said Alan Wright, head of strategy and new business development for Motorola Mobile Devices Europe.
Marc de Jong, executive vp and general manager of NXP, added: “We aim to create, an ecosystem that affords any NFC user the opportunity to access any NFC service.”
The StoLPaN project team expects to issue its first version of the business rules and technical requirements by the summer of 2007. These will be accompanied by the first version of the host application; demonstrating its use with transport and closed payment applications. The StoLPaN project is scheduled for completion by 2009.
